Other side of the coin
by ParaDocksFF
Summary: Worm had plenty of villains who impacted the outcome. How different would the story have gone if some of the major players were heroes instead of villains? Please comment, let me know what you like, hate, whatever.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I don't own Worm. It belongs to Wildbow. This story diverges from the actual plot at 1.05.

"Hey, want a ride?" Grue asked. I shook my head, looking at the creatures that they had called dogs. Grue shrugged in response.

"Hey, what's your name?" Tattletale asked as she seated herself on one of the dogs behind Bitch.

"I don't...I haven't picked one yet." I said.

Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds a junior hero has taken down an established bad ass like Lung, there are gonna be questions. If you don't want to deal with that, you may want to bail now." Tattletale said, flashing a smile as she said it. "And us small time independent type heroes are already under a lot of scrutiny, you know?"

It took me a moment to process her words, but once I got it, I nodded. The girl's grin seemed to intensify as I did. With that, the group took off on the dogs, leaving me alone. I sat down on the roof, processing what had just happened.

It was pretty obvious that the group that had just left were the kids that Lung had spoken of. The kids they were going to kill. Regent, Tattletale, and Bitch had been easy enough to identify as teenagers. I figured Grue was as well.

But they were heroes, not just defenseless kids. They had faced off with Oni Lee. Though, looking at them, they didn't look the way I imagined heroes would. They seemed more...villainous.

I was shaken from my thoughts by the sound of a motorcycle. I remained in my sitting position, feeling too tired from my fight to even consider leaving just yet. After a moment, Armsmaster seemed to fly up to the roof, landing near me. His halberd jerked as he landed, though, and I thought I saw the head shift a bit, which led me to believe that it functioned as a grappling hook.

"You gonna fight me?" he asked.

I shook my head quickly. "No, I...I'm a good guy." I said.

He stepped closer to me and tilted his head. "You don't look like one."

I flinched back a bit. I knew that my costume didn't look classically heroic but...I stopped my thought as I realized that I probably looked like I fit more with the group of young heroes than the Wards or Protectorate. "That's...not intentional. I was nearly done with my costume when I realized it looked more edgy than I meant it too. By then, it was a bit too late to do anything about it."

There was a long pause as Armsmaster seemed to take in my words. "You're telling the truth." he finally said. I wondered how he could say that so definitively, but I didn't want to bring it into question. "You need a hospital?" he asked.

"No, I think I'm alright, surprisingly enough."

"You're new." Armsmaster said.

"Don't even have a name yet." I said. "Most bug themed names either make me sound like a supervillain or a total dork."

Armsmaster chuckled, and it sounded more normal, human, than I would have thought. "I wouldn't know. I got in the game early enough that I didn't have to worry about missing out on all the good names."

"I almost died..." I admitted to him.

"That's why we have the Wards." he said.

I nodded. "You get Lung?"

"He was unconscious, beaten and battered when I arrived. I pumped him full of tranquilizers and welded a cage to the sidewalk around him. I'll collect him on my way back."

"Good. With him in jail, at least I feel like I accomplished something tonight." I said. "Only reason I took him on was because he was talking about killing some kids. Turns out those kids were some other heroes, so they could have probably handled him."

Armsmaster looked at me, and prompted me to tell him more. I walked him through the fight, and gave him descriptions of the young heroes. By the time I was finished, he was pacing a bit.

"And they knew I was coming?" he asked. I nodded in response.

"That explains a lot." he said, staring off over the city. "They're slippery. They generally strike and slip away before we can debrief them. All we really know is that they either win any fights they've gotten in so far, or slipped away more or less unscathed. We don't know much about them. Grue and Hellhound had...sordid pasts before joining the group." he said, scowling as he did. I raised an eyebrow at that.

"The other two, though, are nonentities. If Tattletale has some way of tracking us, it would go a long way toward explaining why they're doing so well."

"It's funny." I said. "They didn't seem that hardcore. Grue said something about them panicking when they heard Lung was after them, but they were being casual and joking as they fought. Grue was even making fun of Regent."

"They did all of this in front of you?" Armsmaster asked.

I shrugged. "They said I helped them out. Maybe they connected with me because I'm around their age?"

Armsmaster nodded. "Well then, we need to decide where we go from here."

My heart sank, figuring he was going to bring up the Wards again.

"Who gets credit for Lung?"

That caught me off guard. I started to speak, but was stopped by him raising his hand.

"Hear me out. What you did here tonight was spectacular. You played a major role in taking down one of the most well known villains in the city. You need to consider the potential consequences of that."

"Consequences?" I asked, trying not to get too elated over being complimented by Armsmaster.

"The ABB is extensive, inhabiting territory throughout Brockton Bay and the neighboring cities. Not to mention Bakuda and Oni Lee, the two other superpowered members."

"I know about Oni Lee. Never heard of Bakuda before." I said.

Armsmaster nodded. "Makes sense. She's new. Her first act as a cape was a terrorist plot at Cornell University. Her plans were foiled by the New York division of the Protectorate, but Lung managed to recruit her and bring her to Brockton Bay, which is...concerning."

"What does she do?" I asked.

"She's a bomb Tinker." Armsmaster said. I could only nod at that. Tinkers were capable of incredible feats of technology. One whose focus was bombs? That was scary.

"Now, consider the danger of taking credit for Lung's capture. Bakuda and Oni Lee will be out for blood, and as a solo cape..."

"You're saying I shouldn't take credit?" I asked.

"I'm saying you have two options. One, join the Wards. There, you'll have support and protection in case the ABB comes after you. Two, keep your head down, don't take credit, and fly under the radar."

I sighed. This wasn't a decision I was prepared to make. I didn't want to think about all of the headaches that would come with joining the Wards. What's more, I didn't want to get on the bad side of one of the major heroes in the city.

"Please keep my involvement in this a secret." I said. I was disappointed to say it, but didn't see an alternative.

Armsmaster smiled, and I noticed that his smile was pretty nice. It made me think he could win over a lot of women, regardless of what the top two thirds of his face looked like.

"I think you'll look back at this decision and see that it was the right one." he said. He strolled over to the edge of the roof and paused. "Call me at the PHQ if you're ever in a pinch." he said.

I picked up on the subtext. I had ceded all claims of victory to Armsmaster. This was his way of saying he owed me.

A moment later, I heard the sound of his motorcycle starting up and driving away, presumably taking Lung away. Hopefully to a life of confinement.

I had about a half hour walk to get home. I would pick up my normal clothes that I had stashed on the way. My dad should already be dead asleep when I arrived back, so I had no more concerns for the night.

All things considered, my first night out could have gone worse. I had taken down a major villain, and had 5 heroes indebted to me in some way or another. There were plenty of hero stories that had started like mine, and ended much worse.

Despite the aches that were already setting into my muscles, I couldn't help but to smile. Even with tomorrow being a school day, I felt pretty good.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Still don't own Worm, yo. Check out Wildbow for...you know, that.

Chapter 2:

I was incredibly nervous as I walked down the street. Partly because the area I was walking to was still fresh in my mind as the site of my almost murder. Partly because of the people I was meeting.

The Undersiders, that was the name of the group of young heroes I had apparently helped out by taking on Lung, had reached out to me on the Parahumans Online message boards. Well, it had been Tattletale specifically who had asked for a meet-up. Even more concerning was that she had known that I had been at the library when I responded to her message.

It hadn't taken much to convince myself to meet them. I had already skipped out on school to get away from my three tormentors, Emma, Sophia and Madison. I may as well use my time productively, and maybe forge some new cape connections.

I ran a hand along my costume, hoping to smooth it out a bit. Tattletale's last message had stated the costume was unnecessary, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

As I approached the building that I had met the Undersiders on, I reached out with my bugs. I could feel three people on the roof, and judging by their sizes...it was definitely them. I took a deep breath and climbed the fire escape.

As I reached the top, and saw the three heroes out of costume. It was easy to figure out who they were. Grue, the taller black boy. Regent, the skinny white boy with black curly hair. And Tattletale, the blonde girl with the vulpine grin, which was out in full force.

"And there she is. Looks like I win the bet." Tattletale said, turning to Regent. The boy groaned as he put his bottle of soda down and reached into his pocket to fish out some money.

"You didn't think I would show up?" I asked.

"No, it was whether you would be in costume." Tattletale said, taking the money from Regent.

"You always win." Regent said.

"That's what you get for making a bet with her. Would think you'd learn eventually." Grue said. "Besides, even without Tattletale's powers, it was a stupid bet. It was obvious she'd show in costume. It's what I would do when dealing with an unknown element."

Regent rolled his eyes and went back to devoting attention to his soda.

Grue approached me and extended a hand. "Hey, my name is Brian." he said. I took his hand and shook it, a bit surprised at how firmly he shook.

"Um, I guess you can call me Bug, for now. Until I figure this all out." I said.

"Cool." Grue...Brian said.

"My name is Lisa." Tattletale said. "And mopey over there is Alec."

"I'm not mopey." Regent said. "Oh, and Bitch is Rachel." he added.

I nodded. "And where is...Rachel?" I asked, looking around. The thought of her and her dogs getting the drop on me put me a bit on edge.

"She's...sitting this meeting out." Brian said. "She didn't agree with our reason for arranging this meeting."

"What, revealing your identities? I would think that she would have the least issue with that. I looked her up this morning, and she doesn't really have a secret identity." I said.

"Well, that was more of a show of trust on our part." Brian said.

"Trust?" I asked. "Trust for...?"

Grue looked over to Lisa, who approached me and handed me an Alexandria lunchbox. I took it and looked it over. "You...want to show me your collectibles? Well, don't worry. I'm not gonna steal it."

"Just open it, dork." Alec said. Brian and Lisa each shot him a glare, but he didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care.

I opened the lunchbox and gasped. It was full of money. "What? This is..." I started trying to mentally add up the bills.

"Two thousand." Lisa said. "All legit, don't worry. And it comes with no strings attached, if you want. You can walk away with that money, consider last night a happy little accident, and we maybe exchange pleasantries as we cross paths in the city."

I could pick up, from her tone, that she had more to say. "Or?"

"Or, you can consider it your first monthly payment as a member of the Undersiders. One of us." Brian said.

It took me a moment of staring at them to realize that there was no punchline coming. They were serious. They...wanted me on their team. "You guys make two thousand a month?" I asked. "But, you're independent heroes."

"Kind of." Lisa said. "We are privately funded. The boss is very generous in regard to us. We're kind of a pet project."

"And two thousand isn't the limit. We earn bonuses based on our performance." Brian said. "The potential earnings are...significantly higher than just two grand."

I nodded, taking in the fact that these guys had a boss. "And...Bitch was against this? You recruiting me?" I asked.

"Yeah. She was the only negative vote." Alec said.

"But she'll change her mind." Brian said, quickly. "She's been against new recruits since the beginning. Doesn't want to risk the money being split more ways."

"So, you've tried this before then?" I asked, closing the lunchbox.

Brian nodded. "A few times. Nothing has really panned out." he said. "They've either refused, saying they work alone, or gotten snatched up by some other team."

I nodded again. I figured most people would go to the Protectorate or Wards over a small, mostly unheard of team.

"So you're trying extra hard with me." I said.

Brian nodded. "Basically. With Lung down, the gangs are all gonna start making moves on ABB turf. The Protectorate and Wards aren't gonna be able to handle all of that, even with New Waves help. This is a prime time for us to make a move and establish ourselves. Make people know they need us. But, Bitch is really the only member of the team who can hit hard."

"Well, I don't think I'll be able to make up for that." I said. "I'm not a Brute."

"You fucked up Lung." Lisa said. "No one has ever been able to do that. Entire teams have tried, teams who have been at this far longer than you, and they failed. Sometimes fatally. The fact that you not only beat him, and walked away more or less unscathed, but that you put him in the hospital? That's impressive."

I was about to respond when her words sunk in. "What? The hospital...?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't you know?" Lisa asked. "You hit him with some of the most venomous bugs and arachnids around. Black widows, brown recluses, fire ants..."

"I'm aware of what I used on him, but he regenerates. All of that venom...it shouldn't have affected him that much." I said.

"Usually, but something must have messed with his regeneration." Lisa said. "Didn't help that the doctors overlooked his bites because 'really venomous bugs don't bite this much'. They put him on a schedule to be checked every few hours."

I brought my hands up to my mouth. "Oh God..."

"Yeah, all those bugs did a number on him. I can't believe you didn't know." Lisa said.

I shook my head, trying to process all of this information. I could feel my reputation dropping.

"Okay, I think that's enough." Brian said. "Lung'll recover from this stuff, right?"

Lisa nodded. "Slowly, but yes. He should eventually make a full recovery."

Alec whistled. "You better hope he gets sent to the Birdcage and it really is inescapable. I know I'd be pissed if I got hit with what you did to him."

"Thank you, Alec." Brian said. "Can we not terrify the potential recruit?"

"Why would you even want me on your team?" I asked. "If I did something like that, then..."

"You said you looked Bitch up, right?" Lisa asked. "You looked all of us up. You did your research. Not much on Alec or myself, but you saw Grue's entries. Two former criminals. We...are more akin to vigilantes than straight up heroes. The boss wants to establish a team that's willing to do things that the Wards or Protectorate may not be willing or able to do."

I drew in a deep breath. I guessed I did fit into that classification, as of right now. "How...how do you know all of these things? Knowing I looked all of you up, the stuff about Lung. Even knowing I was at the library..."

I saw Brian shoot Lisa a look at that, but she just grinned wider. "Sorry, but that's a secret that only comes with a membership." she said.

"Though, I will say that Lisa is a large part of the reason we've had such a good record so far." Brian said.

"The boss is another." Lisa added.

"Supposedly." Alec chimed in. Grue only nodded in agreement.

"Listen, Bug." Lisa said. "I know you're a bit freaked out right now, but Lung is an asshole. He's killed a lot of people. If he has to spend a while in the hospital and sit to piss for a while..." she stopped talking as I gasped at that statement, remembering one of the places that I had targeted the man. Alec's remark suddenly made much more sense.

Lisa shrugged and continued. "As I was saying, that's a small price to pay. Honestly, he should probably have a kill order on him. But, I can tell you that we are a cool group. We don't care about what you did last night. Hell, we think you're a bad ass because of it. We've got a flawless success rate so far, and we get to have some fun and make some cash. We don't have the government breathing down our necks and enforcing rules on us. We patrol as we see fit, do some jobs the boss requests, and we make some cash."

I thought about it for a moment. What they had pitched was definitely tempting. When Armsmaster had mentioned the Wards the previous night, I had felt dread. When Brian mentioned joining the Undersiders, I didn't feel that. I actually felt...okay with it. I looked at the three teenagers in front of me, and then down to the lunchbox.

Looking back at them, I could see them awaiting a response. Brian looked tense, incredibly focused on me. Lisa was grinning, almost like she knew what I was going to say. Alec...didn't really look like he cared.

"Alright." I said. "Yeah. I'm in."

The three of them cheered as I finished accepting their offer.

"So, what now?" Lisa asked, looking at Brian.

"Not really sure." he said. "This...we haven't gotten this far before. We should probably let Rachel know, but she said she might be out today."

"Well, we could always swing by the base. Show the new girl around." Lisa suggested. "Rachel might be there, and we can celebrate."

"Sure, sounds good to me." I said.

"It's only a few blocks away, but...you might wanna get changed. Gonna look pretty weird if we walk down the street with someone in costume.

I thanked whatever higher powers their may be that I had the mask on as I felt my face heat up in a blush. "Oh, um, right." I said. "I...I can do that. I have my change of clothes in my backpack here. I just need a bit of privacy."

"You want us to find you someplace, or...?" Lisa asked.

I looked around. "No, I can do it here. Just...need a minute."

I watched as the three headed to the fire escape and down to the ground. I stripped out of my costume in record time and pulled on my jeans and sweatshirt over the black top and biking shorts I had kept on under my costume.

Once I had changed and packed my costume away, I made my way to the fire escape and down to where my new teammates were waiting. The glanced over at me as I stepped off of the fire escape.

I waved at them. "Hi. I'm Taylor." I saw Alec roll his eyes and turn toward the street. Brian grinned as Lisa approached and put an arm around my shoulders.

"Hey, Taylor." she said. "Welcome to the team."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Don't own Worm. That is all Wilbow's, yo.

Chapter 3:

Our conversation was light as we walked to the Undersider's base. I had tons of questions that I wanted to ask them, but there was no way I was going to ask out in public. The led me to the Docks, and to an old, rundown factory. Brian went over to a side door and unlocked it. Alec and Lisa headed inside, and Brian glanced at me.

"Come on." he said. I went inside and he followed. I looked at the dilapidated building. There was a bunch of old equipment with tarps covering them, and it looked...pretty awful, honestly. I saw Lisa and Alec ascending a spiral staircase, which Grue was also walking toward. I hurried after them, and gasped as I saw the stark difference.

I had been to the Protectorate building a few times on school field trips, and this place looked like it was designed by the same team, except that all of the white that was expected in the Protectorate HQ was replaced with grey. There were a few computers to one side of the room with huge monitors attached to them. At the opposite end of the room was a gigantic TV with various game systems and a dvd player attached to it and a black leather sectional couch. There were a few matching chairs scattered throughout the room. There was also a large conference table in the middle of the room, with a number of chairs around it.

I also noted a hallway straight ahead of me. Approaching, I saw a series of doors, three on each side. Three of the doors had art on them. One was clearly meant to be a bathroom, with the stereotypical man and woman symbols on it. One of the others had a crown spray painted on in a graffiti style, while the last had a female face with puckered lips.

"Cool art." I said, pointing to the doors.

"Thanks." Alec said, flopping down on the couch.

"This place is awesome." I said, still looking around. Even with the trash and take out boxes everywhere, this place seemed so...cool. And it was free of adult intervention. It actually belonged to these guys. "I'm jealous."

"What are you jealous for, dork?" Alec asked, peering at me over the back of the couch.

"Well, it's just...awesome, like I said." I replied, perhaps a touch too defensively.

"No, I think Alec means that you don't need to be jealous because this place is as much yours as it is ours, now." Lisa said. "This is the Undersider's base. You are an Undersider. Ergo, it's your space."

Lisa walked over to the couch, or at least the part of it that Alec wasn't occupying, and waved me over. I slowly walked over and took a seat next to her.

"So, the grand tour. This is the main space here. Obviously." Lisa said. "Mainly where we hang out. Then, those rooms down that hall, in order from the left are Alec's, the bathroom, my room, then Rachel's, Rachel's dogs', and the storage room. We'll clear the storage room out so you can have a space."

I was a bit shocked by that. "Oh, you don't really need to do that. I have my house, so..."

"Listen, Taylor, we'd feel better if we did it, okay? No fuss needed, just...please?" Lisa said, looking a little hurt.

My confusion must have been apparent, because Alec went on. "Brian didn't want a room either. It's been a bit of a sticking point between him and Lisa. If he gets fucked up in a fight, he's got nowhere to rest but the couch. We can only replace those so many times before it starts getting old. Plus, his shit ends up all over the place because he has nowhere to stick it. Trust us, just take the room and do us a favor."

I nodded slowly. "Alright. Thank you." I said.

Brian entered the main room from the hallway, catching me by surprise. I hadn't even noticed him leaving. "Rachel's not here. Dogs either. She's either walking them or working. Wish she'd leave a note or something. Stresses me out when she's out." he said, approaching the couch. He looked down at Alec and the couch he was lounging on. "Move it." he said.

"I'm tired, sit elsewhere." Alec said, closing his eyes. Brian looked over at us and then shot Alec a glare. He came over and sat between us, picking up the pillow that had been in the spot and throwing it at Alec.

"Hey!" Alec said, grabbing the pillow and tossing it back at Brian, who caught it easily and dropped it to the floor.

"Alright, so let's talk business." Brian said. "Like we mentioned, two thousand a month just for being an Undersider. You get input on what we take on, you help us on our missions, and you're available if we call."

"Um, I don't have a phone..." I admitted.

"One'll be provided for you." he replied quickly. I saw Lisa nodding. Apparently this was standard for them. "We also get bonuses for going above and beyond our normal patrol duties. Had you been a member when you had taken down Lung, I can only imagine how much the boss would have dished out."

"Probably a lot." Lisa said. "In excess of Fifteen grand for Lung, I'd bet."

I let out a breath at that. "That's a lot of money."

"It is." Brian replied. "Now, how up to date are you on the cape situation in the city?"

"Somewhat." I said. "Ever since I got my powers, I've been researching a decent amount. Even before that, I was pretty interested in capes. But, last night...I don't think I know as much as I thought I did."

Brian smiled at my confession. A pure, joyful smile. "A lot of people don't get that. We'll do our best to share what info we have. If you have any questions at all, just ask." I nodded quickly, causing Brian to chuckle. "It's great that you're taking this seriously. Between that one lazing about all the time..." he said, pointing to Alec. "And that one acting like she knows it all, it'll be good to have someone with a level head."

"To be fair, knowing things is my power." Lisa said, proudly.

"What?" I asked her. "Really?"

"Mhm." Lisa said, nodding. "My power tells me things. Like you being at the library, and that you were a hero despite your edgy costume."

"Yeah, speaking of the library, why did you even mention that to her?" Brian asked.

"I wanted to mess with her a bit." Lisa said, shrugging. "Figured it'd be funny."

Brian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Lisa..."

"Chastise me later, Brian. I'm giving Taylor some info." Lisa said, still grinning. "Anyway, if I have a little bit of info, my power kind of...fills in the gaps in my knowledge."

I nodded. "And that's how you knew Amrsmaster was coming last night?"

"Yup." Lisa said. "It's one of the many reasons that I'm invaluable to the team."

"Okay. So, what about your powers?" I asked, looking between Brian and Alec. Before they could answer, I could hear a chorus of barking from downstairs. Before I could even fully comprehend that, I saw three dogs rushing at me. One of the dogs grabbed my wrist in it's mouth, pulling me off the couch by yanking it's head back and forth like my arm was a chew toy. Once I was on the ground, the other two dogs were after me as well.

"Rachel, call them off now!" Brian yelled.

I curled into a ball to try to minimize the damage the dogs' claws and teeth were doing, but if it worked at all, it was barely.

"Rachel, right now! Call them off or I swear..." Brian said again.

The dogs continued to attack me, one scratching along my face, causing me to let out a yelp. A moment later, I heard a grunt from across the room. An excruciating moment after that, I heard a whistle, and the dogs backed off.

Lisa and Alec grabbed my arms and helped me to my feet. I gripped my injured arm with my other hand, and noticed that I was shaking. Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I scanned the room, looking for the cause of the attack.

There, near the stairs, was Bitch. She was sitting on the floor, her hand to her nose. I could see blood running down her face. A quick glance to Brian showed that he was rubbing his hand. The three dogs were gathered around Bitch as though to defend her.

"The fuck, Rachel?" Brian asked. "Completely uncalled for in every way. I hate it when you act like this. When you make me do things like that."

"Why did you do that?" I asked Bitch, locking eyes with her. Her only response was a smug sneer. Even with her own injuries, she was acting like she had won.

Brian started to speak, but I couldn't hear him. I was lost in the buzzing of my power. I was clenching my fists, trying to rationalize reasons why I shouldn't unleash my swarm on the girl. After a moment, I realized that I couldn't think of a reason to back down here. After dealing with Emma and her cronies, making my school life hell, I wasn't going to deal with this outside of school.

Before I realized what I was doing, I had pulled free of Lisa and Alec's grips and ran across the room at Bitch. As soon as I started running, my bugs began flowing into the room. It wasn't the biggest swarm I had ever controlled, but it was enough.

I saw Bitch begin to bring her fingers to her lips to whistle, and preempted that by delivering a kick to her face. She had given up whistling when she realized what I was doing, and guarded her face with her arms. Even as I began to attack her, my bugs flowed to her dogs to keep them at bay.

The dogs were afraid of my bugs, but I couldn't be sure how long that would last. I shifted my position to kick Bitch in the torso. I landed a few good blows on her stomach and ribs before she managed to get into a fetal position and minimize the damage.

Just as it seemed that the dogs may make their move to protect their mistress, I felt a darkness fall over me. It didn't just block my sight, but...everything. Even sound seemed to be drowned out by this darkness. When it cleared in wisps of shadows, Brian was standing between me and Rachel.

:"Enough." he said. "No more fighting. Rachel, that's meant for you. You deserved exactly what Taylor dealt you for that little stunt of yours."

Bitch coughed a bit, but didn't say anything. She seemed content to just glare at the two of us.

"Taylor." Brian began. "Come sit down. We can..."

"Fuck that." I said. "You said she didn't agree with recruiting me. You never said she was gonna have her dogs kill me over it."

"If I had told them to kill you, you would be dead." Bitch said, lowly. "I only told them to hurt you."

I laughed, a dry, bitter laugh. "Great. At least she trained her monsters with settings." I said. I turned to Brian and shook my head. "Sorry, but...I don't think I can do this. I think you're gonna have to consider this another failed recruitment."

I turned to the stairs, but before I could take more than two steps, I felt Brian's darkness sweep over me again, and my senses fell away. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings. Finding that I couldn't rely on my normal senses, I reached out to my bugs. With them, I was able to find the stairs and start heading down. The darkness didn't extend past the bottom of the flight of stairs, fortunately.

As I marched across the factory floor, I felt my tears flowing. Partly because of the pain of my injuries, and partly because I was being driven from a place that I had, perhaps foolishly, thought I could belong.

I had barely made it out the door when I heard Brian call to me. "Taylor! Wait!"

I turned, looking at him. He paused when he saw my face, and I figured I must look pretty angry. Or pretty pathetic.

"Gonna try and black me out again?" I asked.

"No, not outside or when I'm out of costume. And not on you." he said. "That was...a knee jerk reaction, more than anything. I just wanted to stop you from taking off."

I started to turn, but Brian quickly stepped toward me.

"Listen, I'm sorry. About all of that. Bitch...she has some issues. Trust me, if it were up to me, I'd drop her and keep you in a second." Brian said.

I was caught by surprise at that. "But...it's not up to you?"

He shook his head. It's...complicated. The boss wants her on the team, and to be honest, we need her. She's our muscle. If we don't have her and her dogs...we lose a lot."

"How did she even end up on a team of heroes?" I asked. I could still hear the anger in my own voice.

"Boss found her in a tough spot and offered her a second chance." Brian said. "Listen, I swear she won't pull something like that again. If she does, I'm out. I'll leave the team and the money behind. But right now, you're hurt, and your clothes are messed up. You left all of your stuff upstairs."

I sighed. I really had left everything upstairs. My costume and the cash that the Undersiders had given me.

"Taylor, we really do want you on the team. Please...don't let this one fuck up ruin that." Brian said.

I sighed again. I looked down at my arm and grimaced. It was even worse because the day had been going alright before Bitch's stunt. I had been starting to feel connected to the other three. Like I had friends again. And it had felt really nice.

"Fine." I said. It was almost a whisper. "Fine. But I want it on record that this is partly because she doesn't want me here, and I don't want to give her the satisfaction." I said, louder.

Brian smiled. "It shall go on record." he said, opening the door. "Now, inside. You may need some stitches for that arm."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Worm belongs to Wildbow, still. So, yeah...

Chapter 4:

I smiled as I made my way down to the Docks to the Undersider's...well, our hideout. The rest of the previous night had gone well, despite Bitch's attack when she arrived. A quick call to my dad to explain that I was with friends and that I really, actually was with friends had freed me to stay and get to know them some more.

We had actually discussed their powers over pizza. Brian's power was as I had assumed. Darkness generation that also blocked out other senses. Alec was able to cause people's muscles to spasm, causing them to trip or drop things. It didn't seem that powerful, but he seemed confident about it, so I hadn't verbalized my thoughts.

They had even given me a rundown of Bitch's power. She was able to pump her dogs up and turn them into the monsters. The dogs themselves apparently remained in some sort of sack in the center of the new mass of flesh, so they would emerge unharmed against most foes they fought.

After the power discussion, we just...hung out. It had been really refreshing. I hadn't fully realized just how much I had missed socializing since Emma had turned on me. It had put me in such a good mood that I had found the thought of going to school that much harder. After my run this morning, which Brian had met me on to deliver my phone, a key to the base, and some breakfast, I headed home to get changed for school. I said goodbye to my dad and headed out, but as I started toward the school, I found it harder and harder to even consider going.

After about 5 minutes of walking, I stopped, and decided that I would write today off as a mental health day, and go to hang out with the others. I just wasn't ready to let my good mood be ripped away from me.

When I arrived at the base, I was met with surprised looks from Brian and Lisa. Alec, who seemed to be having a little training session with Brian, didn't seem to care. Bitch seemed to be gone entirely.

"What's up, Taylor?" Brian asked. "Thought you had school."

"I decided to take a day off." I said. "Didn't think I could focus on school with all of this."

Brian nodded, but Lisa looked a little conflicted. "Well, we're happy to have you around." she said.

I sat on the couch and watched Brian and Alec go at it for a little while, and even joined in when Alec gave up in frustration. Brian didn't hold back, but I learned a few valuable lessons.

Once we were done with our workout, and were sitting on the couch, Lisa spoke up. "So, instead of sticking around here all day, who wants to go out?" she asked. "Hit the Market?"

Alec shrugged. "I'd be down." he said.

"Yeah, sure." Brian replied.

"Won't a bunch of kids walking around in the middle of the day look...suspicious?" I asked.

Alec laughed. "In this city, as long as we don't mug someone, we probable won't get a second look."

"Alright, fair point." I said. "Okay, I guess I'm in."

"Well, good. I was going to make you go regardless. You agreeing just makes it easier." Lisa said, grinning.

Brian took a quick shower, and then we were out the door. The Market was a collection of small shops and stands that sold just about anything one could think of. It wasn't uncommon to see tourists and bored kids wandering around it. And it was a short walk from our base, which was a nice bonus.

When we arrived, Brian glanced over all of the shops. "So, what do you guys wanna do first?" He asked.

Lisa grabbed my arm and pulled me a bit. "Well, I'm going to steal Taylor for a bit. Some girl time amongst new teammates." she said.

Alec shook his head. "You invited all of us here." he said. "If you wanted to hang out with the dork, you could have just invited her."

"Could you stop calling me dork? I asked.

"I don't think I could." Alec said, shrugging.

"We can meet up for lunch. Unless you wanna come to carry our bags?" Lisa suggested.

"I'm good." Alec said.

"Trying to keep the new girl to yourself, Lisa? Selfish." Brian said.

"Deal. You got your little breakfast meeting with her, I'll get my shopping. We can meet at Fugly Bob's later." Lisa said.

"Alright, sounds good. Don't buy too much. We don't want to draw attention." Brian said.

"Brian, I'm offended." Lisa said, grinning. "Don't worry, I know how much is safe to spend. Let's go." she added, tugging on my arm. She started going on about what she intended to buy, and I found myself smiling as she did.

I had missed things like this.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Don't own Worm. It's Wildbow's baby.

Chapter 5:

I looked down at the bags I was carrying and sighed. Lisa had convinced me to get a lot of clothes, most of which I wouldn't have picked for myself. She even shot down any objections I had by paying for them. "My dad is gonna be really curious where I got all of these." I said.

"You could leave them at the base. He doesn't need to know." Lisa said.

"I don't know, that feels too much like lying to him." I said.

"Aww, such a good daughter." Lisa teased. "But, I'm sure if he hasn't noticed your shrinking wardrobe, he probably won't notice when it suddenly expands again."

I paused and looked at her. "What?"

She locked eyes with me. "Taylor, come on. Even if I didn't have my power to tell me something was up, I would have been able to figure it out. It's not your home life, you speak too fondly of your dad. So I figure...school?"

I hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I figured. Brian and Alec agreed." she said.

"You guys were discussing this behind my back?" I asked, feeling a bit outraged.

"Woah, hey. It came up when we were talking about asking you to join, and never quite went away." Lisa said. "You're new and interesting to us. And you're our teammate. We can worry about you."

"Dammit..." I said. "I wanted to keep that part of my life out of this one."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah, keep the bad from infesting the good." she said. She put her arm around me and pulled me into a hug. "Is there anything we can do?"

I shook my head. "I...I don't think so." I said. "Its just something I need to live with."

Lisa shook her head but remained silent on the subject. We chatted about some lighter things as we made our way to Fugly Bob's. When we arrived, we saw that Alec and Brian had already arrived.

We sat and ordered our food, deciding to split a burger. Brian eyed our purchases as we sat, rolling his eyes. Lisa and my food arrived quickly, and we all chatted as we ate. Once we finished, I looked around and saw that most of the patrons were captivated by the TVs inside the restaurant. Even Alec was staring at one.

"So..." I began. "When a bunch of capes get together, isn't it customary to share origin stories or something?"

With their reactions, you would think I'd just stabbed one of them. "Um...did I say something wrong?"

They then went on to explain trigger events to me, and how many capes considered it rude to ask about them because they were often associated with traumatic events. By the end of the discussion, I felt pretty awful.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to trudge up bad memories." I said.

"Don't worry about it." Brian said. "You didn't know. Most people don't. It's something you can really only learn from another cape, and we're really the only ones you know." Lisa and Alec matched Brian's sentiment.

"I guess...I mean, Lisa said you guys were talking about me, and maybe I felt like I should share. But now, I've already kind of ruined the mood." I said.

"Guess that means there's no harm in continuing." Alec said. Brian shot him an exasperated look, as Lisa prompted me to continue.

I told them about my tormentors, the escalating pranks that they pulled, culminating in them shoving me into that horrid locker. I told them about the lack of real response from the school, and how they were still at it even now. By the time I was finished, my three teammates looked a mixture of furious and disgusted.

"I'm so sorry." Lisa said.

"Why wouldn't you get back at them? Sick a bee on them or hide bugs in their food or something?" Alec asked.

I shook my head. "I don't...trust myself not to escalate things if that starts. I know they'd take their aggression out on me, which would just make me angrier, so..."

"You shouldn't just sit there and take it." Alec said. "Get some help."

"The school is useless." I said. "Winslow high doesn't seem all that concerned about bullying. And when a huge group is against me, it's almost impossible to prove."

"If they knew what you could do...what you have done." Brian said. "And to let something like this go on. This isn't how anyone should be treated, much less a hero who took down Lung."

"Well, that's kind of the reason I decided to be a hero. Escape the shittiness of my normal life, kick some ass, and hang out with friends." I paused, looking over the group. "I mean, assuming you guys consider..."

Lisa stopped me. "Of course we're friends." she said.

Brian nodded. "You shouldn't need to ask that." he said. "Anyone else gonna share their stories? Not really fair if Taylor's the only one."

Both Alec and Lisa shook their heads, the latter excusing herself from the table as she did. Brian nodded, and shared the story of his own trigger, explaining how he had dealt with his mother's abusive boyfriend. Lisa had rejoined the table in the middle of the explanation. He finished up by explaining his plan to take custody of his sister from his parents.

"Hence him joining the team." Lisa said.

Brian nodded. "The boss is cutting some of my pay comes from a legitimate company, and the manager is willing to speak well on my behalf." he said. "Which, I'm honestly a bit mixed on. It's convenient, but considering I don't know the boss..."

"You don't?" I asked. That surprised me.

He shook his head. "Lisa's the only one with the means to contact him. She knows who he is, but can't say. Part of her agreement for being on the team."

Lisa nodded. "Speaking of the boss, I just got off the phone with him." she said. "He has a little job for us."

Brian nodded and stood up, gesturing for us to follow. Once we were away from the restaurant and away from potential eavesdroppers, he nodded for Lisa to continue.

"He's gotten wind of some potential illicit activity. Wants us to perform a stakeout and intervene if necessary." Lisa said.

"That's it? Stakeout?" I asked.

Lisa nodded, smiling. "Yup, and a nice pay day for it. Five grand flat for each of us, and he's willing to double it if there's trouble and we handle it well."

My eyes widened. "Ten thousand dollars? That's insane."

Brian nodded. "I agree. That's a lot of money. You think there's something he's not telling us?"

Lisa seemed hesitant, but then nodded. "I'm sure there's something to this. It's important to him, or he wouldn't be fronting this kind of money. He's even offered to front the cost of any materials or weapons we need to feel comfortable with this. Won't even subtract it from our earnings."

"You think we should do it?" Brian asked.

"I do." Lisa said. "Money aside, if this is as important as he made it seem..."

"Alright then, we all in agreement here?" Brian asked. Alec nodded.

"That's a lot of money, I don't see any reason not to." he said.

"Taylor?" Brian asked, looking me in the eyes.

This was it, the first proposed mission as an Undersider. I inhaled deeply and nodded. "Yeah, I'm in." I said. "I...may want some things to prepare, though."

"Alright. Talk to Lisa about that. She's our contact with the boss. Now, we'll just run it by Rachel when we get back, if she's there. I doubt she'll say no to that kind of money, so I guess we should plan on doing it."

"Alright. We'll need to be up early. The boss wants us in place at a very specific time." Lisa said.

I nodded again. The mixture of excitement and nervousness that I was feeling was a bit overwhelming, but excitement was winning out. I was going to be a hero.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Still not the owner of Worm. See: Wildbow.

Chapter 6:

I groaned inwardly as I leaned back in my seat. Our boss had provided a van for our stakeout, and we were now parked in a nice neighborhood, waiting for something to potentially happen. Just as we had been for the last half hour, since Brian wanted to get there early to ensure we didn't miss anything.

It wasn't a total loss, though. The boss had provided me with a knife and a baton that I could use to defend myself, and we were on course to earning five thousand dollars for just sitting here.

"Anything?" Brian...Grue, asked. I mentally kicked myself for slipping. When we were in costume, it was imperative that we use our code names. Even if I still didn't have one.

"The parents are still in the kitchen talking. The little girl is lying down in her room." I said. I had been prepared to send some of my personal supply of bugs in to spy on the family, but there were enough flies and moths inside to allow me to survey, fortunately.

"Time?" Grue asked.

"It's 12:06." Tattletale said. "Should be soon, if something happens at all."

I glanced back at my teammates in the back seat. Tattletale and I had taken the front. That had been Grue's idea, to keep Bitch and myself separated since we still weren't on good terms. Regent and Grue were just behind our seats, while Bitch and her dogs sat near the door.

I was about to say something when I felt it. A bug positioned on the sliding glass door that led to the back door moved as the door did. Wouldn't be too strange, except for the family having not moved.

"Guys, someone's going in." I said, and I could feel everybody tense.

"Alright." Grue said. "Any indication of what they're doing?"

A moments silence while I focused on my bugs. "They're moving toward...oh shit."

"What?" Brian asked.

"The girl. They're moving to her room." I said. "They...want her."

"Alright, we know they're target. We move now. Go ahead with the plan." Grue said. We all nodded, and I heard the back door open. As it did, Bitch, her dogs, Regent and Grue climbed out, followed by the mass of bugs I had hidden on the roof of the car and under Tattletale and my seats. The bugs joined the ones I had gathered underneath the car, and started moving toward the back door of the house.

I could still feel the perpetrator moving. They didn't seem to notice the flies that I had land on them to keep track of where they were. They moved quickly, and with purpose, to the girls room. They pushed the door open, and a second later, I felt the girl jerk quickly. We could all hear the scream from inside, and I felt the parents jump up and move. A moment later, they were knocked to the ground by the invader.

I felt them move toward the back door and stop, causing me to grin. The mass of bugs I had gathered there was huge, and they were on the door, floor, walls, and ceiling around the doors. The invader could get through them, but not without taking plenty along for the ride.

They turned and headed for the front door. We had planned for that, but it wasn't the best outcome. We had been given some information by the boss, including a floorplan for the house. It had a basement, but no way out through it. Apparently, this invader knew that as well.

I signaled to Grue with my bugs, spinning them around his head, and he nodded. A moment later, the front of the house was caked in his inky darkness. I felt the invader open the door and run out, only to pause as they found themselves blinded.

My bugs could feel Grue say something, but I couldn't make it out. I really needed to work on being able to interpret their senses. The next thing I felt was the invader tripping, then their arm convulsing and releasing the little girl. Grue immediately went over and grabbed her, then came over to the van. The closer he got, the more his darkness faded. I could now see Regent in his position at the corner of the house, and Bitch and her dogs, in their monstrous form, approaching from the side yard.

I got out of the van, allowing the girl to take my spot in the passenger seat. She was barely in when I heard Tattletale speak. "Shit, it's Circus." she said.

I looked over and saw the intruder as the last of the darkness faded. He...she? I wasn't sure. Circus, apparently, was getting off the ground and dusting the grass off their outfit.

"You...know the attacker?" I asked. Grue nodded.

"Circus was an earlier attempt at recruiting. She made it pretty clear she worked alone, and had no intention of going straight." he said.

I nodded, both at the explanation and knowing the capes gender. Maybe...I still couldn't be certain. "So, what are we working with?"

"Slight pyrotechnic. Able to conjure weapons from nowhere. She's versatile." Tattletale said. "And tough. She's got a pretty good track record."

"But so do we, and Bitch is about to move in." Grue said. "We should move."

I nodded, and followed Grue over to the lawn. I barely saw Tattletale pick up her phone and start dialing. I assumed she was placing a call to the boss, though it seemed a bit early for that.

As we approached, I could see the dogs move toward Circus, who produced a sledgehammer and began to swing at them. In the middle of her wind up, she suddenly dropped the hammer, grimaced, and looked at Regent. Even though I couldn't see his face, I could visualize his smirk.

One of the dogs pounced on Circus, pinning her to the ground. A burst of fire caused the dog to back off, but it was quickly replaced by another. I could see the tears and scrapes forming on the villain's costume.

I called my swarm to me, keeping the more dangerous ones closer to me. "We have anything to restrain her with?" I asked Grue.

He nodded, holding up a pair of cuffs. "Yeah, Bitch, call off the dogs. I'll restrain circus." he said. I heard him continue talking in a low voice. "Can't believe how well this went."

Before Bitch could call off her dogs, a bigger blast of fire erupted, striking all three of them. Once it was gone, we could see Circus was on her feet, and holding some knives. Grue summoned his darkness and we all moved. I could feel Bitch and Regent retreat to the sides of the house as the darkness expanded. Grue and I remained where we were. He could see fine in this, and I could use my bugs.

I felt the bugs on Circus die, and groaned. She knew I was tracking her with them, obviously. I swept out with my swarm, hoping to find her, but came up empty. Grue cast his darkness away, and as it faded, I could hear him swearing.

"Shit, she got away." he said.

"And we won't be chasing her." Tattletale said. I turned and saw her approaching, holding the girl's hand. "Word from the boss. Circus is dangerous, no point in seeking out a fight with her right now."

"What's stopping her from trying this again?" Grue asked. Tattletale shrugged, but I could see her grin widen.

I felt movement from inside, through the bugs I had left there. "I think the parents are up." I said. "And heading out here."

Sure enough, the couple appeared at the door a moment later. The woman choked out a sob as she saw her daughter, safe and sound. Though, that was quickly drowned out by the sound of a PRT van approaching.

"What are they doing here?" Regent asked.

"I called them in." Tattletale said. "Bosses orders. Grue, give them a rundown of what happened, please. I'm going to go and have a chat with the Alcotts. Let's see if we can't earn our bonuses."

I looked at Tattletale in confusion. Even with my mask on, I was sure she picked up on it. She simply winked and turned toward the girl's parents. "Come on, Dinah." she said as she walked away.

The PRT van approached, and Grue walked over to them. Not knowing what else to do, I approached Regent and Bitch, the latter of whom seemed irritated that Circus got away and we allowed it.

I felt...conflicted. We had done well here, incredibly well, but it felt...off. Almost like it was too easy.


	7. Interludes 1

A/N: Still don't own Worm, but Wildbow does. Oh, and how about some comments or reviews, guys? Let me feel the love.

Interludes 1:

-Dinah-

Dinah groaned as she screwed her eyes shut. Her headache had lessened considerably, but it was still painful. Painful enough to get her out of school for the day, not that she could even enjoy that fact.

Two loud thumps and groans from the kitchen caught her attention, prompting her to sit up despite the pain in her head. She remained silent, right up until her bedroom door opened and the strange clown...woman, maybe, entered the room. Dinah yelped as the intruder approached. She didn't need her power to know that she was the target here.

The villain grabbed Dinah and picked her up, and Dinah resisted as much as she was able, which wasn't much. When she realized that she couldn't break away, she turned to her power.

 _Odds that I'll be taken from the house?_ 86.25287%. Dinah's heart dropped at that.

 _Okay...odds that I'll see my parents again?_ she asked, as she was brought through the hallway toward the back door. 100%. Okay, not terrible. The path the villain was taking wouldn't allow her to see the kitchen, so she had some hope. But still, 100% was very high. She rarely got anything that definitive.

The villain paused, and Dinah chanced a quick look to see why. The back door and the walls, floor and ceiling surrounding it were covered in bugs. The insects weren't moving the way Dinah would have expected. They seemed to move with a goal, with a purpose. Dinah smiled, even as her headache worsened. There was another cape here. One her kidnapper wasn't working with.

 _Odds that I'll sleep in my own house tonight?_ 100%. Dinah could barely contain her relief. The villain carried her through the house again and to the front door, throwing it open. Neither was ready for the wall of oppressive darkness that was outside. After a moment of absolute blindness and silence, Dinah was dropped to the ground and taken by the hand by another individual. She was led from the darkness, and as soon as she could see, she looked up at her savior.

He was a tall man wearing black leather and a helmet like a motorcyclist would. She couldn't see his face under his skull helmet, though she could see some of the thick darkness leaking out of it. He led her to a van, where she realized that he wasn't the only one here to help her. Two girls, one in a grey silk costume with strange armored segments and one in a purple and black body suit. The one in the silk costume got out, and Dinah was pushed to her seat. As she passed her, Dinah could see that she had bugs crawling on her.

 _Guess I know who to thank for the back door being blocked._ she thought. The two headed back toward her house, leaving Dinah with the blonde girl in purple and black. Glancing over, Dinah could see the girl grinning.

 _Odds that these people are heroes?_ 92.1548%. Okay, so there was some wiggle room. They rescued her, they were heroic enough. Dinah flinched as her headache worsened another notch.

"Getting a headache?" the girl asked. Dinah looked over at her, and saw she had her phone out and was dialing a number. "It sucks, trust me. It get's easier to deal with. The more you use your power, the more...oh, one sec."

Dinah nodded as the girl started speaking into the phone. "Hey, PRT? Great. This is Tattletale of the Undersiders. We have a break and enter and attempted kidnapping here. Yeah, initiated by a cape. Circus. Okay, great. See you in a bit." Tattletale ended the call, and then began texting. "Anyway, yeah. Thinker headaches suck, right?"

Dinah nodded again. "Yeah, but not as bad as when I first got my power." she said.

Tattletale nodded. "Yeah, see. You gotta exercise that muscle." she said. She then looked at Dinah for a moment. "Your parents are trying to hide all of this, huh?"

Dinah paused, then nodded slowly.

"Right, they probably want you to have a normal life. Nice of them. But, I think we both know that can't really happen, right?"

Dinah looked down at the floor. That was...not something she wanted to hear.

"But, being normal sucks. Why do that when you can go out and kick all kinds of ass, you know?" Tattletale said. She then widened her eyes and looked a little sheepish. "Um, sorry. Should probably watch my language."

Dinah giggled. "It's fine." she said. "I've heard worse."

Tattletale grinned. "Cool. So, can I ask...you got any juice left?" she asked. "Cause my boss wants this to go well, and..."

Dinah sighed. "I mean, I guess I owe you." she said.

"No, don't think of it like that." Tattletale said. "This is...mutually beneficial. If it'll tax you too much, don't worry."

"No, I can get a few more, I think." Dinah said.

"Alright, cool." Tattletale replied, grinning widely. "So, let's see if we can prepare for a little chat with your parents."

-The Wards-

"This was an absolute mess." Director Piggot said, looking over the Wards. "Not only did the criminals get away, which will cause people to question the capabilities of the Wards and Protectorate both, but you all caused a massive amount of property damage in your attempts to stop the..."

"The Travelers, ma'am." Gallant said. "And to be fair, they are a notorious gang of criminals. We didn't do badly considering..."

"You held your own, but at a cost. And I don't mean the money was stolen. That is a non-issue." Director Piggot said. "This fiasco will prove to be a major mark on the reputation of this organization. And that is not helped that while you all were blundering at the bank, the Undersiders flawlessly stopped a kidnapping attempt."

"Well, a kidnapping isn't exactly the same as a full on assault on a bank." Clockblocker said. "I mean, it's still good for them, but..."

"They stopped Circus, the notorious villain, from kidnapping the mayor's niece." Piggot said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "And, there is video showing their execution. The fact that there is proof that they performed so well at the same time that we caused major damage makes this whole situation worse. Couple that with the fact that Glory Girl of New Wave was on the scene and equally at fault as all of you, and the Undersiders have just gained a lot of footing."

"Is that bad?" Vista asked. "I mean, more heroes means more people fighting the villains."

"Considering that they seem to be entirely privately funded, and we can't figure out who's funding them? Yes, it's bad." Piggot said. "They have no regulations holding them back, as far as we're aware. They could be a dangerous element."

The Wards remained quiet. Piggot continued. "Your next checks will be docked to pay for the property damage from this altercation. All of you." she waited for the protests to fade before carrying on. "And you will all be attending a disciplinary seminar." With that, Piggot left the room.

"Shit." Clockblocker said. "That was pretty harsh."

"We did get our asses handed to us." Browbeat said. "And the new guys in town did apparently show us up."

"Speaking of, you should see this video. Looks like they got some new blood." Kid Win said from his seat in front of a large monitor. "Dude seems interesting. Looks like...bug control."

"Yeah, looks like." Gallant said. "But, I think that's a girl, Kid."

"What? You sure?" Kid Win asked, leaning in to look at the screen more closely.

"I think so. I mean, she has her hair coming out of the back of her mask. Looks pretty feminine." Gallant replied.

"Yeah, she's a girl." Vista said, a little excitedly. "Which is awesome. We need more cool girl capes."

"She got a name? Never seen her before." Aegis said.

Kid Win shook his head. "Doesn't look like it. Just brought up the PRT report from the scene. No mention of the new girl's name. Looks like they're trying to think of one for her."

"Well, maybe we should lend a hand." Clockblocker said.

"Why? You wanna stick her with an awful name?" Vista asked.

"No way. I don't want people thinking we got shown up by someone with a lame name. And I think we can all agree the PRT aren't the best at coming up with names."

There were various murmurs of agreement from the junior heroes.

"Alright, we can touch on that after we debrief." Aegis said. "We need to share what we learned about the Travelers."

-Director Piggot-

Emily Piggot groaned as she fell into her chair. This was...not a good day so far. She simply sat and thought for a few moments. She had worked tirelessly to try and build the Wards and Protectorate of Brockton Bay into something respectable and renowned, and one day like today could deliver a crippling blow to everything she had done...

If she let it. She reached for her phone and dialed a number. She set the phone to speaker and leaned back in her chair.

"Thomas Calvert." came a voice once the ringing stopped.

"This is Piggot." she spoke.

"Ah, Director. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Calvert asked.

"I'm sure you heard about the...events of today." Emily said.

"I have." Thomas replied. He was always up to date on any information that came into the PRT.

"Good. Then we need to find a way to work this. Turn it into a positive for the organization." Emily said.

"I suspected you would say that." Calvert said. "I have been thinking, and I have a few ideas, both to boost opinion of our organization and manage the Undersiders, to a degree."

Emily sighed as she leaned forward, resting her arms on her desk. "I'm listening."


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

"I don't think I've ever been as hungry as I am now." I admitted. Alec chuckled, shocking me. He had been so engrossed in his game that he hadn't spoken at all for the last 45 minutes.

"Food should be here soon, dork." he said. "Brian's usually pretty prompt about delivering it to us on time. I think he still holds out for a tip."

"Shouldn't one of us have gone with him?" I asked. "I mean, it's a lot of food for him to bring back alone."

"If he had thought he needed the help, he would have asked." Alec said.

I was about to reply when I felt someone brush past one of the bugs that I had in the lower floor of the base. A few more passing by the person revealed that it was Rachel, and not Brian. As she made her appearance in the main room, she eyed Alec and myself wearily. She hadn't been anywhere near as hostile toward me since the day I was recruited, but...she wasn't exactly warm.

"Brian went to get some food." I said. "Chinese. He said he knew what you wanted?"

Rachel grunted in response and headed in the direction of her room. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I pulled out my phone to check the time. It was a little after 4, now. I could probably beat my dad home if Brian go back soon. Then my only concern would be hiding that I had skipped school...again.

I knew it was for a good reason. A really good reason. But it still felt iffy.

I felt a pair of hands rest on my shoulders and nearly jumped out of my seat. Alec started laughing as I looked up into Lisa's grinning face.

"Whoa, calm down there, Taylor." Lisa said. I could hear the amusement in her voice. "Or maybe I should call you Skitter?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why would you call me that?"

"Well..." Lisa began. "It seems that our friends at the PRT and the Protectorate have decided to give you that name. Free of charge, too."

"What?"

"We did try to warn you not to take too long picking a name, dork." Alec said. "They chose Hellhound for Rache, after all."

"How do you even know this?" I asked Lisa. She raised an eyebrow at me. "You know what I mean."

"Come on, Taylor. A group of heroes foil the kidnapping of the mayor's niece, it's gonna get some press. It's all over the news." Lisa said.

I jumped up and grabbed the remote off the table, switching the input to cable.

"Hey!" Alec protested. "Rude."

"I need to see this." I said, turning my attention to the TV.

"just joining us, we are discussing the attempted kidnapping of Dinah Alcott, niece of Brockton Bay Mayor Christner. The act was perpetuated by known parahuman criminal Circus, who broke into the Alcott residence earlier this afternoon. The crime was foiled by the new hero group in the city, the Undersiders." the reporter said.

"The Undersiders as a group have a nebulous past, with some former criminals making up their ranks. However, since forming in Brockton Bay, they've been gaining attention as a real positive force in the city. What's more, they appeared today with a new member. The PRT has issued a statement that Skitter, the new member, has no current record, implying that she's a new cape and native to Brockton Bay."

I shook my head. I noted that the reporter said there were former criminals in the Undersiders. I had heard them reference some things in their past, but...known criminals? That thought was a little jarring. "They can just do that?" I asked. "They didn't even ask me my name."

"They may have asked Brian." Lisa said. "Matter of fact, I'm almost positive they did. And he would say..."

"That I haven't chosen a name yet. Great." I said. "Skitter, though? It sounds..."

"Kind of villainish?" Lisa asked. I nodded.

"None of us have classically heroic names, you know." Alec said, grabbing the remote and switching back to his game. "If you haven't come up with a name by now, would you have come up with anything better?"

"I don't know." I said. "I'd just...like to have the choice."

"The choice of what?" Brian asked, entering the room with a couple of large bags in hand.

"Taylor's lamenting cause the PRT decided to name her." Lisa said.

Brian put the bags on the table and sighed. "Shit, should have figured that would happen." he said. "My bad. I should have called you over to talk to the PRT guy. Given you a chance to at least name yourself."

I sighed, walking over to the table. "It's fine." I said. "I don't think I would have been able to come up with something on the spot. I'd probably be in this situation no matter what."

"What'd they give you?" Brian asked, reaching into one of the bags and handing me the Styrofoam container within.

"Skitter." I said, taking my food. "I guess it makes sense. Probably one of the few bug related names they could have come up with that wasn't taken or too villainous. A bit creepy, though."

"Well, I'd say it suits you then." Alec said, grabbing his own food from the bag. I shot him a glare as Brian pushed him slightly. He just laughed in response.

"Hey, Rache! Food's here." Brian yelled. "Any word from the boss yet, Lise?"

Lisa shook her head. "Not since I told him the job was done. He said he had to wait a bit to see exactly how well we did, but I have a good feeling." she said as Rachel walked into the room. "I'm 90% positive everything went the way he wanted it to."

"Sweet, looking forward to that ten grand." Alec said.

"Oh, you gonna pay me back for the food when we get it?" Brian asked.

"No way." Alec said. "But don't worry, the money will go to a good cause. Me."

Brian rolled his eyes. "Damn it, Alec." he said. "Either way, we did really well today. Especially since it was our first time out as a full team."

"Yeah, we really hit Circus hard." Lisa said, falling onto the couch with her food. "I'm sure that fact alone would be enough to boost our reputation. But, considering the Wards got messed up by the Travelers at the same time..."

"What?" I asked. "The Travelers? Who are they? And they attacked the Wards?"

"Not exactly." Lisa said. "The Travelers a group of traveling criminals. They go from city to city, cause a little chaos, and then leave. They were robbing Brockton Bay Central Bank this afternoon, the Wards tried to stop them, and...well, it didn't go well for the Wards."

"Oh God, did anyone die?" I asked.

Lisa laughed. "No, no, nothing like that." she said. "They just got thoroughly embarrassed, and had to run home with their tails between their legs."

Alec and Brian chuckled at that, but I didn't ask why. Some bad blood between the groups, maybe?

"Those two events add up to us looking pretty good to the public." Lisa added. "Which is sure to please the boss."

"Yeah, and you spent forever chatting up the girl's parents." Alec said. "You were talking to them longer than Brian was talking to the PRT goon. You trying to make sure they spread the good word about us?"

Lisa grinned. "Kinda." she said. "We're gonna have to see how that pans out."

We all ate our food and chatted, except for Rachel who stayed pretty silent. Once I had finished, I said my goodbyes and headed home. I needed to try and beat my dad home, knowing that any deviation from normal behavior would lead to him asking questions, which could lead to him figuring out I skipped school today.

And, I also needed to mentally prepare for school tomorrow. Even thinking about it was killing the high I was feeling from my earlier adventure. The thought of going from a hero to the poor, lonely bullied girl was a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

 _Oh well..._ I thought. _I can get through it. I'm a hero now._


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

Even with all of the positivity that had occurred for me over the last few days, school turned out to be a chore. The anxiety I felt by merely being there was pretty awful. Somehow, facing Circus hadn't been as daunting. Maybe that was because I hadn't seen that coming, while I always knew school and the trio were looming in my future.

Though, I had managed to keep away from them for most of the morning. Now, though, it was lunch time, and that was one of their favorite times to torment me.

I dashed out of my classroom and made my way down the hall, hoping to make it to a bathroom before they found me. Unfortunately, a few bugs in the halls let me know that my plan wouldn't work.

I turned and saw Emma, Sophia, and Madison approaching me. They all had sneers on their faces.

"Well, look who it is." Emma said. "We thought you had finally decided to stop showing up."

"Did you three miss me that much?" I asked. "No one else has made any comments about me being out."

"That's because no one cared." Emma said, eliciting laughs from her two cronies.

"Or they had more important things to worry about." I said. "I mean, things come up, people miss school."

"I suppose things do come up." Emma said. "People get sick, or end up in mental health wards..."

I grimaced. "Nice, Emma." I said. "Can't think of anything better, so you need to bring that up to try and hurt me?"

Sophia stepped forward and pushed me into the wall, sneering as she did. "Back off, Hebert." she said. "You're acting a bit above your station."

I groaned at the position I was in. This was their standard way of operating. Emma would try to hurt me emotionally, Sophia would dole out the physical punishment, and Madison...well, she probably had some immature prank planned.

I closed my eyes and let me head rest against the wall. I knew that something worse was about to happen. I just had to brace myself for it...

"Taylor! There you are." My eyes shot open and I turned my head, seeing Lisa, Brian, and Alec approaching me. Turning back, I could see Emma, Madison, and Sophia looking as confused as I felt.

"Wh-what are you guys doing here?" I asked, pushing myself away from the wall as Sophia let go of me.

"Well, you were taking forever. We figured we'd come and see if you needed help." Lisa said. I could see a mischievous look in her eyes.

"Help? Um...?"

"Who are you three?" Emma asked, looking my friends over. "I don't recognize you from around school."

"Well, that would be because we don't go here." Alec said. He made it sound like going here was an insult in and of itself, which considering my current situation probably wasn't far off the mark.

"If you don't go here..." Madison said, cautiously. "Why are you here?"

"As Lisa said, we came to help our friend Taylor grab her stuff." Brian said.

"Grab her stuff?" Emma asked. "Why?" she added, turning and looking at me suspiciously.

"Oh, she didn't tell you?" Alec asked. "Figured she would have spread it to all her friends already. She's outta this shit hole. Arcadia accepted her transfer request from ages ago."

"What?" Emma asked, turning to me. "You're transferring to Arcadia?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I turned to look at my friends and raised my eyebrows. Lisa just winked at me and approached.

"Well, yeah. Her score on the placement test was more than enough to get her in. And considering the story about what happened with that locker..." she paused, and I could tell she was exaggerating her shiver a bit. "You heard about that, right? Just awful."

Sophia smirked a bit. "Yeah, we heard."

"Well, Taylor won't have to worry about that at Arcadia. Very strict with anti-bullying measures. So much so that they're curious about how a school allowed a student to go through what she did. Heard they're sending some people over here to perform a very in depth investigation." Brian said.

I could see all three of the bullies pale a bit. "So, you ready to grab your stuff?" Alec asked. "Not that we wanna rip you away from your friends, but..."

"Um...we were just going..." Emma said. Sophia and Madison hurried away quickly, Sophia only pausing to glare at us all for a moment. Emma, on the other hand, stayed still, seeming to be trying to process all of this.

"Hey, you're Emma, right?" Lisa asked, walking over to her.

"Um, yeah..." Emma said. I chuckled a bit. It had been a while since I saw Emma speechless.

"Taylor has told us so much about you." Lisa said. Emma narrowed her eyes and looked at me. "But she didn't mention how gorgeous you are. You could be a model, don't you think guys?" Brian and Alec remained silent, but nodded slowly.

"Um, yeah, I mean, I do some modeling..." Emma said. She really seemed to be having problems with this for some reason. I looked down the hall and saw Sophia and Madison had stopped just at the corner, staring our way. Sophia was still glaring.

"Can't say I'm surprised." Lisa said. "I bet you must get all sorts of attention from guys, huh?"

Emma hesitated, and Lisa seemed content to continue.

She walked over to Emma, and said something too quietly for me to hear. Emma's reaction was like she had been punched in the stomach. Lisa backed away, coming to stand next to me.

What was I missing here?

"Oh, shit. We need to get going here. Sorry to run, but it was great to meet you, Emma. Maybe we can hang out again."

With that, Lisa grabbed my arm and dragged me away from Emma, who still looked devastated. As soon as we were out of earshot, I found my voice.

"What the hell was that?" I hissed. "Or any of this? What the hell is going on?"

"Well, that was us talking to your bullies, obviously." Lisa said. "You're welcome, by the way."

"I...I didn't ask you to do any of that. I don't even know what you did to Emma, why did she react that way."

"Oh, don't worry about it..." Lisa said. "I just told her that she seemed like a strong person."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"More or less." Lisa said.

"And what was that crap about Arcadia?"

"Oh, that was the reason we really came here. We could have called, but...we figured that delivering the news in person would be better." Lisa said.

"Lisa mentioned your situation to the boss when he set up the Alcott job. He pulled some strings and got the application your dad put in a while ago boosted to the top. You start at Arcadia on Monday." Brian said.

"And, since they have a different curriculum, there's really no point in you sticking it out for the rest of the day here." Lisa said.

My mouth fell open. "Wha...seriously?" I asked. "That's...that's unbelievable."

"Figured you'd be psyched." Lisa said.

"I...I am. That's amazing, but why would the boss do that? I haven't even been on the team a week."

"You helped us a few times already." Brian said. "Taking out Lung, helping with Dinah, you've proven yourself already."

"And the boss was very happy with how our mission yesterday went." Lisa said. "Needless to say, we got our bonus. Your share is at the base."

The thought of being given ten thousand dollars distracted me from the school situation for a moment, but only a moment.

"And that all made him want to do this?" I asked.

"Well, I suggested it." Lisa said. "I told him that it would help boost your morale, and increase your trust in him. You, as the newest member, needed that boost to trust in him. You don't have that precedent with him we do. There are also other reasons to do it, but we can talk about that later."

I raised an eyebrow, but let that go for now.

"Okay, but, still, what if they come after me? Emma knows where I live, and you were messing with her."

Lisa looked at me and smirked. "We did some prep work. The odds of that are low. And, being here, seeing them, I don't think it's a concern."

I sighed, and then realized that we were standing in front of my locker. Lisa walked over to it and messed with my combination. After a few moments, the lock popped open and she opened the door. I walked over and started grabbing my stuff.

"So, I get the combination thing. You said passwords and stuff don't stop you. How'd you know where my locker was?" I asked.

"Well, I can't give away all of my secrets." Lisa replied.

"She asked the office." Alec said, grinning. "Surprised they told us, actually."

I nodded, and emptied the last of my things into my backpack. I struggled to heft it on my back for a second, before Brian grabbed it. I was a little embarrassed when I saw how easily he seemed to lift it.

"Cool, let's blow this pop stand." Alec said. "Being in a school...ugh."

We headed to the nearest exit and outside. I breathed deeply. It felt good to be leaving this place for apparently the last time. Lisa put her hand on my shoulder, and I smiled. We walked in silence for a few minutes, heading to the nearest bus stop and boarding the bus heading to the docks.

It took us about half an hour to make it to the docks. We stopped and grabbed some lunch and looked around the stores, finally making it back to the base around 3. We went into the factory and up to the base. Brian dropped my backpack as we entered.

"So, how's it feel?" he asked. "Being a hero, having things improve for you as a result."

"I...I still can't really believe it." I said. "It feels like a dream I'm gonna just wake up from."

"No dream, dork." Alec said, taking his normal spot on the couch. "The real dream is not having to go to school at all. But, we can't all be that lucky. Or, well, you can't I guess."

I shook my head. "School...it's fine, as long as I'm not being tormented." I said.

"Won't be a problem at Arcadia." Lisa said. "The boss mentioned your problems at Winslow, so they'll be keeping an eye out. He even set it up so you can come and go as you see fit, for when you're called to duty. I don't think they know you're a cape, but you shouldn't have any problems sneaking out."

"I can't believe this. My dad is gonna flip out." I said.

Lisa smiled. "Hope he's happy with this." she said. "And you too. It can't make up for the shit those bitches did, but..."

I shook my head. "No, I think this is great. Probably the best outcome." I said. "Though, you did mention another reason for the boss wanting to get me into Arcadia. Mind me asking what that was?"

Lisa grinned. "Well, that is another important bit of info." she said. "Brian, you wanna field this one?"

Brian nodded. "That girl the other day, Dinah Alcott. You have any idea why Circus wanted her?"

I shook my head, and Brian continued. "She's a cape. A precog." he said. "Able to bust questions down to a percentage of how likely they are to happen."

"For instance..." Alec said. "If we were to ask her the odds of some stuck up high school alpha bitches trying to retaliate against you for a stunt we pulled, she could tell us that, based on what we said to them, there was a 12.8615% chance."

My mouth fell open for...what felt like the hundredth time that day. "You mean you ran that all by her?" I asked.

"Of course." Lisa said.

"Why? How?"

"When Lisa went to speak to the Alcotts, it wasn't just to return Dinah." Brian said. "It was an offer. They were hesitant to even acknowledge that she had a power. Her almost getting kidnapped pushed them toward needing to face that."

"Okay..." I said.

"And, given that we saved her, and have a thinker in our midst who has dealt with, and managed to cope with the headaches that come with her powers..."

"And some promises that the boss authorized me to make." Lisa added. "The Alcotts were more than happy to accept our proposal."

"You mean?" I asked.

"Yes." I heard a voice from behind me. I turned and saw the girl we had saved the day before, standing in the doorway. She had a backpack on, implying she had just come from school. She dropped her backpack next to mine and smiled. "I'm the newest Undersider."

I turned back to Lisa and Brian, who were smiling. Alec seemed as apathetic as ever. "And Rachel is cool with this?"

"Not cool, exactly, but not violent. We had to assure her her pay wouldn't be affected." Lisa said. "But this makes sense, and puts us in a good position."

"Is this why the boss wanted us to take that job?" I asked. "Why he offered so much? He knew she was in danger and that her parents would be looking for a way to keep her safe, and he wanted us to get to her over the Wards?"

Dinah walked to the center of the room, and locked eyes with Lisa. After a moment, Lisa shrugged. "More or less. The mission was organized with the hope that Dinah would join up, as well as a chance for us to boost our reputation by foiling it."

"And I was...hesitant to join the Wards. I feel my power can serve better elsewhere." Dinah said. "The Undersiders give me the best odds to use my power fully."

"And now, we're a six person operation." Brian said. "Dinah's gonna be behind the scenes most of the time. She'll only make appearances as Oracle when necessary."

"Oracle?" I asked.

Dinah nodded. "I'm a precog, so...it makes sense." she said. "It was the bosses idea."

"You met him?" I asked, eliciting a nod from Dinah.

"She's under the same restrictions I am. Can't say much at the moment." Lisa said.

"Okay, can we not talk about work any more?" Alec asked. "I already had to help Brian set up a space for the squirt, and I was dragged to a school, can we just relax for the rest of the day?"

We all laughed at Alec's exclamation, but we relented. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to know Dinah, and filling her in on some of the stuff the Undersiders had done. A lot of it was new to me as well, so it was a good experience.

A little after sundown, Dinah and I were getting ready to head to our homes when we felt the ground shake and a loud noise burst through the building. We all looked at each other, and then ran to the window. Smoke was rising from one of the buildings a few blocks away. As we watched, another explosion went off, followed by another.

"What the hell?" Brian asked.

"The ABB." Lisa said. "Their bomb tinker, Bakuda. She's doing this. She must be."

"Why?" I asked.

"Who knows? Sow seeds of chaos? Just having fun? Hard to tell with psychos." Lisa said.

"I don't think you two should leave just yet." Brian said. "It's not gonna be safe out there. Lise, can you go dig for some info on what's going on? I'm gonna call Rachel. Dinah, Taylor, call your families. Let them know your safe, and you're staying here until things calm down."

We all set off to do as Brian asked. My dad wasn't happy that I was out while this was happening, but agreed that it was safer to be inside than out walking around. Dinah looked like her parents had given her an earful. A few minutes after we made our calls, Rachel walked in. She looked angry, but not hurt.

I walked over to the window and sighed. "So much for today being a good one."


	10. Interludes 2

Interludes 2:

-Emma-

"Please, Emma, don't think you're fooling anyone." the strange girl whispered. These people, Taylor's supposed new friends, they were throwing a wrench into everything. Taylor had been reacting to Emma's jabs, and then they showed up and...no one seemed to know how to handle them.

"What?" Emma responded, just as quietly.

"I know exactly what you've done, what you've continued to do." the girl said. "I wonder what could make someone turn on a friend...maybe you felt you outgrew her? That you're better than her? Stronger?"

Emma flinched, and saw the girl grin in response. "There it is." she said. "You have such obvious tells. Don't take up poker. Anyway, let me tell you...you're weak. Far weaker than Taylor is. Trust me."

Emma could feel herself shaking. Who was this girl to say these things? She...she didn't know anything. If she had, she would know how much she just fucked up. If Taylor had just fought back, then...

"And that weakness has driven your best friend away. Have fun living with that. And keep a look out for gangs while traveling around. I hear the ABB is getting a bit rambunctious lately."

With that, the girl walked over to Taylor, grabbed her arm, and the group left. Emma wanted to run to join Sophia and Madison, but couldn't get her legs to move. After a few moments, she heard the pair approach.

"What was that?" Madison asked. "Who were they, and why were they with Hebert?"

"I don't know..." Sophia said. "They...there's no way Arcadia is looking into the locker thing. They wouldn't bother."

Emma shook her head, but didn't speak.

"Emma? You there?" Madison asked. "What did that girl say to you?"

Finally, Emma found her voice. "I...she...I need to go." she said. That whole conversation, the girl calling her weak, saying she drove Taylor away, mentioning the ABB, it had all torn at Emma. The last thing she needed was for people to see her like this.

She started to walk away, only to feel Sophia's hand gripping her arm. She looked angry. "Emma, where are you going?" she asked.

"I...I need to go home." Emma said. "I just...can't..."

"Emma, we don't run." Sophia said. "You're stronger than that, right? I thought you were a hunter, not prey."

Emma opened her mouth to retort, but...she couldn't. She hated what she was feeling, so helpless. It was like that girl had known the exact words to speak to mess with her.

Emma turned wordlessly from her friends and headed down the hall. She would go to the office and phone her mother, and she would go home and think. She could get past this.

She had too. She was strong.

-Armsmaster-

"They're going too far." Armsmaster said, pacing the room. "This isn't just starting a fight. They may as well have requested a kill order."

"Well, I say we give them what they want." Assault said. "They've hurt countless people, which is bad enough, but busting Lung out? That's too far."

Armsmaster didn't miss the wry smile Battery had on her face when she heard Assault's condemnation of breaking a criminal out of jail. "It complicates things. If it were just Bakuda blowing up half of the city, or just Lung escaping, it would be more easily managed, but..."

"Both at once? It's a bit much." Miss Militia said. "Three hours of constant bombing, and the ABB as a whole is going all out. If we don't find a way to put this down, fast..."

Armsmaster nodded. "Exactly. So, any ideas?"

"One." Armsmaster groaned as he turned and saw Emily Piggot and Thomas Calvert entering the room. The latter was the one who had spoken. Armsmaster nodded for the man to continue.

"I have received information that the villains of the city are planning a meeting." Calvert said. "To discuss the ABB situation themselves. As I understand it, the territories that they lay claim to have been affected by Bakuda's assaults. I'd wager that they all take up arms against Lung and his gang."

"So, you're proposing we just...let them duke it out?" Assault asked.

"Not at all. I propose we do the same. An alliance amongst the heroes of the city." Calvert said. "Director Piggot agrees. If we reach out to New Wave and the Undersiders, and assault the ABB with our combined forces, I believe we'll be able to eliminate them as a concern before the weekend is over."

Armsmaster groaned a bit. "Bringing in the private teams may be...difficult. They operate differently than the PRT and Protectorate do." he said.

"Different may be what we need." Piggot said. "If this continues, there may not be a city left to protect."

Armsmaster sighed. "You're right, of course, Director." he said.

"Excellent, then I assume you're all on board?" Calvert asked. There were affirmative murmurs throughout the gathered heroes. "I'll make the appropriate arrangements and reach out to New Wave and the Undersiders."

Armsmaster watched them walk away. "Miss Militia, please alert the Wards that we should expect guests at some point soon." he said. "The rest of you are dismissed. Get ready for an all out confrontation with the ABB."

Armsmaster excused himself from the room, leaving before even Miss Militia did. He needed to get to his workshop and prepare.

He wasn't looking forward to this. New Wave was one thing, there was a history there. They had collaborated many times, but The Undersiders? They were an unknown. Especially there newest member, Skitter.

He groaned as he recalled the two days of scrutiny he had endured, the suspension, as a result of the combination of tranquilizers and venom that had been pumped into Lung. It wasn't entirely the girls fault, but...it wasn't entirely his, either.

He shook his head as he entered his workshop. No matter. He needed to prepare. Lung would be recaptured, along with Bakuda and Oni Lee. And this time, they would all be sent to the Birdcage.

-Sophia-

"Alright, Wards." Miss Militia said. "A decision has been reached. We will be acting against the ABB."

Sophia smiled. _Great. After all that shit with Hebert today, I could use a little stress relief._

"When are we going out?" Aegis asked.

"Unknown. We are calling together the cities heroes, to strike with the full force of the city." Miss Militia said. "New Wave and The Undersiders are being invited here so that we can pitch the collaboration to them. You should all be aware so that you can be in costume when they arrive."

Sophia's smile left her face. She wouldn't get any action just yet, and she would have to deal with even more heroes. New Wave was almost as lame as the Wards, and The Undersiders...

Well, they were closer to what real heroics were, in her opinion, but they still lacked that edge. She had faced off with Grue, their acting leader, when he first showed up in the city. His power had messed with hers, and he was an okay fighter, but he had lacked that killer instinct.

 _Whatever._ she thought. _I'll still get to go out and fuck up some scumbags._ She turned to go to her room to get into her costume, wanting to be ready when they showed up. She glanced quickly at her phone, seeing that Emma still hadn't responded to her texts. She shook her head.

 _Maybe she's not as strong as I thought._

Sophia tossed her phone onto her bed and set about getting changed. She hoped the other groups got here soon. She had a lot of aggression to work out.


	11. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

The bombings lasted well into the night...or, morning. It took a lot for us to get any sleep, Couple that fact with Brian's idea to sleep in shifts in case anything came to close to the base, we weren't well rested when Lisa got a call from our boss explaining that the Protectorate wanted to meet with us to discuss the situation.

We all agreed that it was a good idea to meet with them, but we also didn't want to get ourselves killed heading to a meeting. The explosions trailed off around 3 in the morning. We decided to give it an extra hour to make sure it was safer, and then we headed out.

Dinah, to her credit, seemed to handle the little sleep and early awakening well. I still felt bad that she had to go through this, especially on her first day in the group. Though, considering that I had also faced the ABB on my first day out...maybe there was a theme for the recruits to the Undersiders.

When we headed outside, we found a van waiting for us, provided by the boss. We all climbed in and headed off. The Protectorate building was about a half hour drive from the base, under normal circumstances. However, these weren't normal circumstances. The streets were empty, save for a few emergency response vehicles that we saw. It only took us about 15 minutes to make it. We stopped about a black from the PRT HQ.

"Why are we stopping here?" Dinah asked, before letting out a yawn.

"We should make an entrance." Grue said. "Don't wanna roll up in a van when we could do something...grander."

I could practically hear Regent's grin as he spoke. "Fighting Skitter for her dork title?"

Grue reached back and punched Regent in the arm, then opened the door. "Come on. Skitter, mind scanning and telling us if anyone's waiting for us?"

I nodded, and reached out with my bugs as I climbed out of the van. I guided some flying insects to the PRT building, and swept them around it. I could feel two people in front, standing still, obviously standing watch.

"Two people. Guy and a girl from what I can tell." I said. "That's it though."

"Can't be normals." Tattletale said. "Not if there's only two of them. Guy and a girl? Probably Assault and Battery."

"Alright, figured they'd have lookouts." Grue said. "Skitter, you can see in my darkness, right?"

"Yeah, I can use my bugs to feel my way around."

"Alright. Tattletale, Oracle, stick with Skitter." Grue said. "Regent, Bitch. With me. Make sure your dogs keep up, Rache."

With that, Grue began casting out his darkness. I felt Dinah...Oracle grab my hand, and Tattletale put a hand on my shoulder. My bugs could feel Grue, Regent, and Bitch begin to move, so I started using my bugs to feel a safe path.

As we approached, I could feel Assault and Battery react to Grue's darkness, shifting into defensive stances. When we finally reached the street just in front of the heroes, Grue let his darkness fade. Oracle and Tattletale let go of me as Regent and Bitch let go of Grue.

As all of the darkness faded, and the other heroes could see that it was us, they relaxed a bit. I couldn't help but grin at their reactions.

"Jesus...you scared the crap out of us." Assault said. "Couldn't have taken a less creepy approach?"

Grue shook his head. "And leave the ABB to take shots at us if they happen by? I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"Fair enough..." Battery said. "Thank you for coming, despite the danger."

Grue shrugged. "If it's not dealt with, the danger won't go away." he said.

"Please, come inside." Assault said, heading to the door and opening it. The pair of them allowed us all to enter. I turned to look at them as I noticed that only Assault was following us. I turned to him and tilted my head.

"Is she not coming?"

"Neither of us are, actually." Assault said. "We're still waiting on New Wave. I'm bringing you guys to the Wards quarters to wait until they get here."

"We're getting stuck with the sidekick squad?" Regent asked.

"Well, the rest of the Protectorate members are in a meeting right now. We're only out here because someone has to meet and greet our guests. The Wards can at least keep you company, right?"

Regent shrugged, and we all followed Assault to the elevator. He went to a panel next to it, and let it scan his eye, and a moment later the elevator popped open. We all went in, and were on our way. The elevator was very quiet and smooth, making me wonder if it was a Tinker invention.

When the doors opened again, we were led down a hall to another door. Assault scanned his eye again, though this time the door took longer to open. When the door did open, we saw the Wards scattered around the room.

"Alright, I'd love to do introductions, but I should get back down to Battery." he said. "I trust you guys to figure it out."

We went into the room as Assault walked away. The eyes were all on us as we entered. There was an uncomfortable silence as we all sized each other up. After a few moments, a boy in a silver and rust colored costume with a shield emblem on it approached. I recognized him as Aegis, the current leader of the Wards.

"Undersiders, welcome. Nice to finally meet you." he said. Grue approached and extended his hand, and the two shook.

"Heard you guys had a pretty solid success the other day." Aegis said. "Foiling a kidnapping, and taking down Circus? Not too shabby."

Grue nodded. "It went well." he said. "Just lucky we were there. And that our plan worked as well as we had hoped."

"Yeah, we saw the video." Gallant, another of the Wards said. "Impressive display. Really wish we had you guys as backup at the bank heist the Travelers pulled off."

Grue nodded. "Maybe next time..." he said. The little exchange seemed to open up the channels of communication, and Clockblocker and Kid Win also approached Grue to chat. Regent joined, making occasional quips at the Wards expense. Or Grue's, as the situation saw fit.

Tattletale, Oracle and I stayed away from the main group. Tattletale was looking around, looking like she was taking everything in. Oracle yawned again, though she was also glancing around the room. Bitch, for her part, walked away from everyone and sat in a corner, surrounding herself with her dogs.

I turned around as I felt someone splintering from the Wards and approaching. I watched as the young girl in the teal and green costume approached, smiling. "Hello." Vista said.

"Um, hi..." I said. I was feeling more out of my element by the second. I had been in costume less than a week, and now I was standing in the PRT HQ, talking to the Wards. Vista, in particular, one of the most famous of the Wards as a result of her being the youngest ever. Though, I did note, she seemed to be about Oracle's age.

"It's really cool that you guys have so many girls in your group." she said. "I mean, it's really only me and Shadow Stalker here, and...she doesn't really count."

Lisa smirked at that. "She doesn't?"

Vista shook her head. "She doesn't really like hanging out with any of us. She's kinda moody..." she said. "It kinda sucks."

"Speaking of, where is your former vigilante right now?" Tattletale asked.

"She's in the gym training." Vista said. "She'll probably come up soon, so...get ready for that."

I nodded, and cast a quick glance to Bitch. "I'm sure we can handle it." I said.

"...Tattletale, Skitter, Oracle, and Bitch." I heard Grue call. "Though I see Vista already met three of them."

Clockblocker broke off from the group and approached. "Nice to meet you guys. And, Skitter, you dig the name? We helped come up with it, you know."

I shrugged. "Not really what I would have chosen." I said.

The young hero seemed to deflate a bit as I said that. "Oh, but...you're using it, so..."

"Well, it was announced on the news. I checked the PHO boards and it's already being thrown around there. Looks like I'm stuck with it, one way or another." I said.

"Woah, careful. I don't know if Clockblocker can take that kind of a blow to his ego." Kid Win said. "He thinks he's the champion of naming."

I sighed. "Well, to be fair, I wasn't having an easy time coming up with anything. Most names were either taken or sounded to much like a villain's name."

Aegis nodded. "Yeah, I can see how that could be an issue with your power."

"Two new members in a week, though. You better calm down. We might start thinking you're trying to move on our turf if you keep expanding like this." Kid Win said.

"We're not gonna turn away new allies that'll make our job easier." Grue said.

"Well, we've seen what Skitter does. What about you?" Vista asked, looking at Oracle.

"I'm a precog." Oracle said.

Clockblocker whistled. "Impressive." he said. "I'm a little jealous. Wish we had a precog on our team. Would make things run smoother."

Tattletale grinned. "Them's the breaks." she said. "Not that you guys are lacking in power. We can't let you have all the powerful capes."

I turned away from the conversation as I heard the door open, and saw Shadow Stalker walk into the room. She glanced at each of us, and it almost felt like she was judging us. Maybe she was.

"Shadow Stalker, meet the Undersiders." Aegis said.

"I'm familiar with them." she said. Grue grunted as she spoke. I would have to hear the story behind that later. "About time they showed. Maybe we can actually get this show on the road soon."

"We're still waiting on New Wave." Browbeat, the newest Ward said.

Shadow Stalker groaned, and sat at the large table that was situated in the room, apparently content to ignore us.

"Hey, Skitter." Vista said. "You're costume is really interesting. Where'd you go for it?"

I raised an eyebrow, not that they could see it. "What?"

"I was actually going to ask you that, too." Grue said. "Been thinking about making some upgrades, but it slipped my mind."

I started to ask for clarification again, when Tattletale groaned. "Geeze, sometimes my power makes me feel like the only person who can see in the land of the blind. Skitter, they're asking where you bought your costume. The answer, for those of you wondering, is that she made it."

"No shit?" Grue asked at the same time that Vista said "Seriously?"

"Yeah..." I said. "It's spider silk. It's only a little weaker than steal, but way more lightweight. It's a bit less durable than Kevlar, but stretchier. It took me forever to make. I had to rotate the spiders because black widows are really territorial, and I needed to constantly switch them out so that..."

"Woah, wait..." Clockblocker said. "Black widows? You had black widows make that thing for you?"

I nodded. 'Well, yeah. Their silk is some of the strongest in the world. I'd love to get some with stronger silk, but they wouldn't handle this climate well."

Vista shivered a bit. "Black widows? So creepy."

"We should talk about this later." Grue said. "If you'd be willing, I'd pay you to make a new costume for me."

I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I think that's doable. Just gonna have to find a spot to make it."

"I'm sure we can find a place at the base for you to set up." Grue said.

Regent shivered. "Great, thousands of black widows in our base." he said. "That's cool. I didn't like sleeping, anyway."

"Making a costume like that, you may have a tinker rating." Kid Win said. "That's some interesting thinking."

I was blushing a bit behind my mask as I received the praise from the other heroes. "Well, thanks." I said.

"You seen what it can do? Like, you used Kevlar as an example. Can it take a gunshot?" Kid Win asked.

"Well, I haven't been in a rush to go out and get shot..." I said. "It's pretty tough to cut. If I messed up while working on it, I had to basically start that section over. So, it might be knife proof."

"Should be useful against Oni Lee." Aegis said. "Bakuda and Lung, though..."

"Oh, we don't have to worry about Skitter dealing with Lung." Tattletale said, and I could hear chuckles from the rest of the Undersiders, except for Oracle, even as I shook my head.

"What do you mean?" Gallant asked.

"Well, let's see...Skitter's first day out in costume was last Sunday." Tattletale said. "I wonder if anything else happened last Sunday?"

"I saw a look of confusion appear on Aegis' face. "Lung was brought in last Sunday...by Armsmaster."

Tattletale grinned, and Gallant gasped a bit. "He was, but remember. They had to call in Panacea to help him. When he was admitted, it wasn't just normal wear and tear from battle. The doctors noted that he had..."

"Bug bites." Clockblocker finished. "Holy shit...you took on Lung on your first night out?"

I noticed Shadow Stalker stand up and approach us. "Um, yeah. Kinda." I said.

"Woah..." Vista said. "Um, remind me not to do anything to piss you off."

I chuckled, even as I grew more worried. I had let Armsmaster take credit for the capture of Lung. Hopefully this information coming out to the Wards wouldn't make him angry.

We heard the door open, and saw Miss Militia in the doorway. A momentary feeling of being starstruck hit me, but passed as she spoke. "New Wave has arrived." she said. "If you're all ready, we can begin this meeting."

Grue nodded, and waved for us to follow him as Aegis led the Wards out. I took a deep breath as I followed my team out of the room to meet with the biggest heroes in the city.


	12. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Entering the large conference room that was filled with Protectorate members, Wards, and all of New Wave was intimidating. Even ignoring the fact that I had only been at this for about a week, and many of these people had been active for ages.

There was also the stark contrast between our costumes, which helped us stand out quite a bit. Armsmaster had commented, on my first night out, that my costume had a bit of a villainous look. That was a theme that was held by many of the Undersiders. Grue and Bitch, in particular. Tattletale and Regent rode the line as far as their costumes went, having a bit of an...edge to them.

Oracle was the only one who had what I would call a classically heroic costume among us. Her costume was a white robe reminiscent of a greek toga with a symbol of a sun with an eye in the center on the front. She also had a white domino mask to hide her facial features, and a crown of what looked like laurel on her head.

I looked at the table and saw Armsmaster sitting there, with Dauntless to one side of him and Miss Militia to the other. The rest of the Protectorate members stood behind him. Brandish and Lady Photon sat at the table, next to Miss Militia, while Aegis sat next to Dauntless. Grue looked at us, nodded, and then sat next to Aegis.

Once all of the assumed leaders of the teams were sitting, Armsmaster spoke. "Thank you all for joining us here this morning." he said. "I won't mince words. We all know why we're here. The ABB has begun what can only be referred to as a terror campaign in the city. A number of innocent people have already been injured in this bombing run, with more expected if they're allowed to continue."

"Well, with Lung in captivity, it should be manageable." Brandish said.

Dauntless shook his head. "Unfortunately, in the midst of the attacks this morning, Lung was freed." he said.

I paled behind my mask, even as Lady Photon said "Great..."

"Lung's presence does complicate matters significantly." Armsmaster said. "He will be sure to take measures to insure that he won't be recaptured."

"He was able to go toe to toe with the entire Protectorate alone. He was able to take on Leviathan alone. To say that he complicates matters is an understatement." Panacea said.

"He was captured before, he can be captured again." Grue said.

"Precisely." Armsmaster said. "If we all act in tandem, we can subdue Lung before his power increases enough to make him unbeatable."

"Additionally, we won't be the only ones facing off against the ABB." Miss Militia said. "We've received reports that the villains of the city organized a meeting similar to this one, and have agreed to cooperate in taking down the ABB, and have agreed to cease illegal operations to allow us to focus entirely on this situation."

"Already?" Oracle asked. "The bombings haven't even been happening for 12 hours."

"Apparently a number of the initial targets were near and dear to the other gangs." Miss Militia said. "They were...eager to deal with this quickly."

There were nods around the room, and Brandish spoke again. "So, an alliance of villains, and an alliance of heroes. Hit them from all angles."

"Correct." Armsmaster said. "If you all agree to the alliance, of course."

"New Wave has always assisted the Protectorate in cases such as this. You can count on us for this as well." Brandish said, with nods from the other members.

"The Undersiders are in as well." Grue said.

"Good to hear." Armsmaster said. "Now, as for our plan of attack. The ABB are active all over the city at the moment. So we have no real way to figure out where the priority targets are."

"Bakuda, being a tinker and supplying her bombs to other members, isn't likely to be on the front lines." Brandish said.

"Not quite." Tattletale said. "She was acting leader while Lung was out of commission. I don't think she's going to go back and retreat into solitude."

"And how do you know this?" Glory Girl asked.

"Call it a hunch." Tattletale said, grinning. "Though, I'm also thinking she's working on something big. So...we're probably working on a timer here."

Armsmaster nodded. "Alright, then the sooner we break into groups and get out there, the better."

"So, for dividing us up..." Miss Militia said.

"If I may?" Tattletale asked. "Oracle and I, we're not front liners. We can do the most from a base of operations, supplying everyone with our particular brands of information."

"Understood, we can set you up here, and give you a line of communication to all teams." Dauntless said.

"That does leave us down two members." Grue said. "Wouldn't mind some loaners to make up for it."

Armsmaster looked around the room, before nodding. "What type of powers would work best?"

"Heavy hitters, preferably." Grue said. "Bitch's dogs are our only real muscle."

"Glory Girl can go with you." Brandish said.

"Mom?" Glory Girl asked.

"Victoria, they need someone with your power set. We'll manage. And the Wards can get on without you for this mission."

Glory girl groaned, but didn't protest again.

"I can go with them, too." Shadow Stalker said. A number of heads snapped to her, including most of the Wards and Grue. Tattletale was still grinning.

"I'm...not sure about that." Miss Militia said.

"Not exactly a heavy hitter..." Grue mumbled.

"I'm used to working the way they've been shown to." Shadow Stalker said. "I won't get in their way. We can have, like...what's the word?"

"Synergy?" Tattletale suggested.

"Yeah, synergy." Shadow Stalker said.

"You also need someone to keep an eye on you." Armsmaster said.

"I can go with them, as well." Aegis said. "I can keep an eye on Shadow Stalker, and add some muscle to their group. We can give Clockblocker a chance to lead the Wards, since he's going to be taking over in a few months."

Armsmaster seemed to consider for a second, before nodding. "Very well. That should work."

The rest of the teams were more or less unchanged, minus the ones who were joining us. Once that was all set, Armsmaster stood up. "Alright, let's get out there. And remember, this is a capture mission, if possible." He glanced at Shadow Stalker, and I swore that he glanced at me after, before turning to the rest of the room. "Do not use excessive force."

I took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. Two fights with the ABB in less than a week, and it seemed Armsmaster was less than pleased with me. Great start to my career.


	13. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Even though the ABB had let up on their bombing, they hadn't retreated completely. There were still areas that the Protectorate was considering war zones for all intents and purposes. We were on our way to The Docks, where a number of ABB members were causing trouble.

"Kinda curious that you volunteered to go with anyone, Shadow Stalker." Aegis said, causing the girl to grunt.

"It was either come with them, or stick with the kids. Didn't feel like more baby sitting." Shadow Stalker said.

Aegis shook his head. Tattletale spoke through my comm channel. "Not quite it." She said. "She's interested in how we operate. Wants to see the Cape who took down Lung in action."

I shook my head. I hadn't done much against Lung. Just threw bugs at him. There was no need for anyone to try and observe how I worked.

The open channel lit up, and Tattletale spoke to all of us. "Assault and Battery's team is engaging Bakuda now." she said. "So, you guys get to go in knowing she's not there."

That was a relief. I didn't know much about the ABB's resident Tinker, but what I did know was scary. A crazed bomber, who could make bombs that defied all known laws of physics? No thanks.

The walk to The Docks didn't take too long. We saw a few ABB members hanging around, but they took off quickly once they saw us coming. I let out a yawn as we walked. It was still earlier than I was used to being up, and I hadn't slept much.

Grue cleared his throat as I yawned, causing my face to warm up. "Sorry..." I said.

"It's fine." he said. "You wanna scout ahead, see if there's anything to be concerned about?"

I nodded, and spread my bugs out ahead of us, sweeping them along the streets and through the buildings. After a few minutes, I found a number of people in a building.

"Got some people." I said.

"Innocents?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. Not with the weapons that they're carrying."

Grue nodded. "Alright, guess we should go check them out. Any sign of a cape?"

"None of them feel like Lung." I said. "None are that big."

"Could be Oni Lee, though." Aegis said. "Which wouldn't be good."

"No sense in wondering." Glory Girl said. "We can't just leave them sitting around."

We all moved forward. Grue was already summoning up some darkness, though he wasn't sending it out as cover. I noticed Shadow Stalker was making note to stay away from Grue.

As we approached, my bugs felt someone go to the basement window, presumably looking out. He turned around and then one of the other men stood up and...disappeared. I paused.

"Shit." I said. "You know how Aegis said Oni Lee might be in there?" I said. Everyone else stopped and looked at me. I felt some bugs appear out of nowhere and turned to look at the roof of a nearby building. Even without having ever seen him before, I recognized the ABB assassin. "He was right."

"Shit." Regent said.

"How'd you know he was up there?" Shadow Stalker asked.

"I tagged him with some bugs." I replied, quietly. "When his copy disappeared, I felt it. When he showed up, I felt the bugs pop back into existence."

"So you can track him?" Aegis asked. I nodded.

"Alright, getting him out of the way should be top priority." Grue said. "Glory Girl, can you go after him?"

"No problem." Glory Girl said.

"Alright. Skitter, guide her. We'll all join in when we take out the others."

Glory Girl flew off toward Oni Lee while the others went after the non cape members. By the time she arrived at the spot he had been, his copy was falling apart and he had moved a few buildings away. I yelled my directions to Glory Girl, and she flew toward him, repeating the process.

We managed to actually pull that off a few times before Oni Lee figured out that I was the one tracking him, somehow. Once he did realize, however, he turned his full attention to me. Maybe he didn't realize I was doing it with bugs?

I felt him teleport again, right behind me. I sent a small swarm in his direction. A few of the good ones managed to latch on before he teleported again. Glory Girl managed to pull me away from the copy before the grenade it was holding went off. The explosion still rocked me a bit, but I was unharmed.

I turned toward Oni Lee, who had moved back to a rooftop. Glory Girl followed my line of sight to him. I set my bugs to start biting and stinging the assassin as Glory Girl flew at him. He struggled for a moment against the bugs before he teleported again. My assault didn't let up, however, and each time he tried to make a move against me, Glory Girl would fly at him, scaring him off.

He reappeared on the street, looking a bit shaky. He unclipped a grenade from his belt. In the same moment that he pulled the pin, a dart flew past me and struck him in the chest. I felt the familiar sensation of my bugs appearing from nowhere. I turned around and saw Oni Lee slumping to the ground, the grenade falling from his hand. I turned and started to run away from him. After a moment, Glory Girl grabbed me and helped pull me away.

The other grenade went off. I hesitated to look, but something made me. I looked and saw...nothing. Looking around a bit more, I saw Shadow Stalker standing over an unconscious Oni Lee.

"Couldn't let you have all the fun with him." she said, taking the weapons off his belt and other various holsters.

"What about the others?" Glory Girl asked.

"We already took care of the other ABB scumbags. Figured I'd see how this fight was going." Shadow Stalker said. She then whistled as she looked the fallen assassin over. "You weren't kidding. Those bugs messed him up."

I shrugged. "Nothing too dangerous. Some bees and weaker spiders. No black widows or brown recluses." I said.

"Still, enough to put him off kilter." Shadow Stalker said. "Not too shabby. Maybe we should try to meet up with Assault and Battery so you can play a part in taking all three of the ABB capes down."

"No need, Bakuda's down." Tattletale said. "And Armsmaster's team has engaged Lung. Might be worth heading that way. PRT officers are already en route to collect Oni Lee and his posse."

"Alright, you heard Tattletale." Grue said, emerging from the building. "Let's get moving."

I sighed. _Great._


	14. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

"Talk to me, Oracle. How are we doing?" Grue asked.

"Starting to get a headache. Can you be a bit clearer?" Oracle replied. She sounded like she was in rough shape. I felt bad. She was young. Younger than Vista, if I was remembering correctly. And she was pretty new to her powers. Tattletale had gone over the headaches Thinkers could get previously. I could only assume the other groups were taking advantage and were asking her questions to improve their odds of success.

"Odds that the three ABB capes get locked up?" Grue asked.

"83.294% Bakuda is incarcerated. 86.825% Lung is incarcerated. 46.246% Oni Lee is incarcerated." Oracle said.

"Makes sense." Tattletale added. "Harder to hold a teleporter."

I groaned. "So we just took him down, and there's a good chance he's gonna get away?"

"That's always a risk in this line of work." Aegis said. "Good odds for Lung and Bakuda though. That's not bad for a day's work."

"If we can take Lung down." I said. "Still about a 14% chance he gets away."

"I'd take those odds." Aegis said.

We continued walking, making some small talk as we went. When we finally reached the location where Lung had been engaged, we saw an all out battle going on. Basically every hero was on the scene, though Armsmaster and Dauntless were the only two directly engaging Lung, who had grown to twice his normal size and was covered in metallic scales. The fire that was dancing off the surface of his body added to his intimidation factor. Some of the other heroes who had ranged attacks were taking the occasional shot at the villain.

"Okay..." Aegis said. "This looks kinda bad. Lung's really gotten going."

"No point in waiting around, then." Grue said. "Skitter, can you distract him?"

I took a deep breath and nodded, then sent my swarm at Lung, as Grue surrounded us with his darkness. I kept enough bugs around myself to be able to find my way. I could feel Lung react as my bugs reached him. They couldn't do much now that he was so heavily armored, but it served to get his attention. He turned toward us and let out a low growl.

Dauntless and Armsmaster continued to take shots at him as we left the darkness. Most of us went to the right, but I could feel Shadow Stalker go to the left. Lung headed straight into the darkness, swiping around as he entered and shooting off some fire. I felt some of my bugs die as he did. After a moment, the darkness faded and Lung was looking around ,trying to find us.

A bolt of lightning shot out of Dauntless' lance and struck Lung's face. He turned to react, but then hesitated. I could feel some disturbances from the bugs I had on Lung's back. He paused for a moment, then was struck by another bolt. I could feel him swaying, then he toppled. Once he was on the ground, I could see 6 darts sticking out of his back. Shadow Stalker floated down from the top of the building she had been perched on, and landed on the street. She holstered her crossbow and approached.

"Not bad..." Dauntless said. "Good timing, too. If that had continued, no telling how bad it could have gotten."

Grue nodded. "Guess that wraps this up, then." he said.

"That...wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." I said.

"Well, we did hit them with every hero in the city." Regent said.

"Lung has handled things like that before." I said.

"Yeah, but he was also taken down by a small group before." Grue said.

"We'll escort him back to lock up. And then see him and his cronies delivered to the Birdcage." Armsmaster said. "Thank you all for your assistance."

I shook my head, watching as the Protectorate capes started working to confine Lung.

"Well, that's another victory under our belts." Regent said.

"And some connections made." Tattletale chimed in. "Not bad for a days work."

"Yeah, I guess so." I said. "But if we're all done, I should probably head home."

Grue hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Right, should probably check in. We'll see you later? Celebrate maybe?"

I nodded. "Yeah, definitely." I said.

With that, I turned and started jogging home. I was careful to avoid going too near Lung, even if he was unconscious. Better not to tempt fate.

Even still, I couldn't help but to grin behind my mask. Twice in one week, I had helped take down Lung. This time, there was a good time it would be for good. And I had gotten to show off a bit in front of other heroes. So far, this hero business was going great.


	15. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

When I made it home, I barely managed to mumble a greeting to my father before heading to my room and passing out. The lack of sleep and exertion of my morning had taken a massive toll on me.

I slept until 2 in the afternoon, not quite the equivalent of a full nights sleep, but definitely helpful. I then showered, got dressed, and headed downstairs to see my dad.

He looked up as I descended the stairs. "Have a good nap, Taylor?"

"Yeah. Just what I needed." I said. I glanced to the TV and saw that he had the news on. I could see Armsmaster on the screen. "Something happen?"

"Yeah, turns out the bombings didn't just stop for the day. A bunch of heroes banded together to take on the ABB. Got all three of their Capes, apparently." Dad said.

I smiled. "Well, that's good."

"It is..." he agreed. "I guess they brought out all the big guns. The Protectorate, the Wards, New Wave. That new hero group was there too. The Undersiders, I think."

I nodded slowly, trying to be careful not to give anything away. "Yeah, I've heard of them." I said. "But they managed to get all three of them? Even Lung? I heard he had gotten out..."

My dad nodded. "Yup, all contained. Hopefully they'll stay that way. The city would be much safer. Anyway, enough about this stuff." he said, turning off the TV. "I was thinking we could go out for lunch, maybe pick up some stuff for your first day at Arcadia on Monday?"

I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Sure, sounds good." I said. "I don't think I'll need too much stuff, though. Probably just some new notebooks."

"Well, we can figure that out when we're at the store. Maybe we can pick up something for dinner tonight, too..." he said.

"Um, actually..." I interrupted. "My friends had asked me to hang out tonight, if that's alright. We were probably gonna grab dinner together."

My father looked concerned for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, that should be fine." he said. "Say, speaking of these new friends, when am I going to meet them?"

I paled a bit at that. Introducing my normal dad to my cape friends? I wasn't sure how that would go. Especially if Bitch was involved. "Um, soon. I mean, with all the gang stuff that was going on..."

My father laughed. "Oh, don't worry about it, I get it. It's not cool to introduce your friends to your old man."

I shook my head. "It's...really not that. It's just..."

"Anyway, let's get going. Don't wanna keep you out too long if you already have plans."

-That Night-

"The boss was happy." Lisa said as I sat on the couch. "Really happy. We played a major part in taking down the ABB today. Hell, we had a direct roll in taking down 2 of them. The 2 more established capes, too."

"Not too bad for your first day on the job, huh Dinah?" I asked the young girl.

"Not exactly what I would have liked to do with my Saturday morning, but it was...interesting." Dinah said.

"You all talk too much. I'm trying to play a game here." Alec said. He had taken the smaller of the two couches for himself. "I do like to hear what I'm doing sometimes."

Lisa threw a pillow at the boy, causing him to grunt in annoyance.

I heard the door open and saw Brian walk in with a few pizza boxes. "Food's here." he yelled. "Get it while it's hot."

"Took you more than 30 minutes. Hope you're not expecting a tip." Alec said, pausing his game and standing from the couch.

"You don't even pay me back for the food in the first place." Brian said.

"Oh, good. You weren't expecting a tip, then." Alec said, grinning. Brian punched him in the arm, causing the smaller boy to laugh a bit. He grabbed a plate, collected a couple of slices, and then took his spot on the couch again. The rest of us followed suit. Lisa, Dinah, and I took our seats back, and Brian forced Alec to make room for him. Rachel sat on the floor surrounded by her dogs.

"So, the boss was happy with us." I said, returning to our earlier conversation. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Well, other than it being smart to keep your employer happy?" Lisa responded once she finished the pizza she had in her mouth. "We're earning his trust. I think that means he'll be more willing to throw us more high profile jobs. Bring us more into the fold."

"Higher profile means more money." Alec said.

"I'm still pretty happy with what we earned the other day." I said.

"You volunteering to give up your future shares?" Alec asked.

I thought for a second, then shook my head. "Didn't think so." he said.

"He mention having another job for us?" Brian asked.

"Not yet. I got the impression they'll be something soon, though." Lisa said. "He's probably waiting to see how everything with the ABB blows over, and how the Protectorate handles it. That bombing run of Bakuda's must have been a pretty big hit to their credibility. And they needed to call in help to clean up."

"That's fine with me." I said. "After all that excitement, I'm looking forward to just relaxing tomorrow."

"Looking forward to your first day at your new school?" Lisa asked.

"Kind of. Hard to get over the feelings of anxiety, you know?" I responded.

"Arcadia's a good school. I never see anyone getting bullied or anything." Dinah said. "With everyone knowing the Wards go there, and people like Glory Girl around..."

I laughed a bit and nodded. "I can see how that would be a deterrent."

We continued to chat while we ate, and I was surprised to see that even Rachel was joining in after a while. As it got later, Dinah and I decided we needed to head home. Brian decided to as well, and said he would make sure Dinah got home safe.

The three of us walked together until we needed to go our separate ways to reach our destinations. It was nice. It had been so long since I had felt like I belonged anywhere, and now I just...fit with the Undersiders. I was smiling my whole way home.


	16. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

I had faced down villains pretty consistently over the last week, and one would think that that would be the height of anxiety that I could feel, right?

Apparently not. As I stood outside of Arcadia High, I somehow felt even more uneasy than when I was heading out to help deal with the ABB.

 _Maybe because the others aren't here to back me up?_ I wondered. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Dinah attended Arcadia as well. Though, we had discussed when we all met the day before that we shouldn't act like we know each other right away. The fact that we were in different grades and, realistically, shouldn't know each other cemented the fact. So, I was essentially flying solo here.

And not knowing anyone was kind of a double edged sword. On the one hand, I had no back up. On the other, I shouldn't be a target like I was at my old school. I looked down at my clothes, a pair of jeans that were far tighter than I would normally wear, a yellow long sleeved top, and a pair of boots. Lisa had helped me pick it out, claiming it would look great on me. I wasn't so sure anything looked great on me, but I had begrudgingly accepted wearing it.

I took a deep breath and headed into the school. I managed to make my way to the offices and was ushered in to a room with two other girls and 3 boys. The two girls, I learned, were my age and had the same general body type. Though, they were a bit more...endowed in some areas.

We were all given our schedules and some other students were called in to escort us to our classes. A boy named Chris was chosen for me since we each had math class first. I followed him out of the office, and he started chatting almost right away.

"So, our class is actually on the other side of the school. You'll probably want to use the other entrance most of the time." he said.

"Okay, good to know." I said, looking around. This school was so much nicer than Winslow.

"So, what brings you to Arcadia?" Chris asked. 'You just move here, or...?"

"Oh, no. I've lived in Brockton Bay my whole life." I said. "Just...my old school wasn't that great, put in to transfer and...here I am."

"Ooh, nice. Home town transfer. You must have pretty good grades." Chris said.

"Or I could be a Ward." I said, jokingly. Chris shook his head and gave me a flat look. "Don't believe me?"

"Well, the only new Ward who's shown up is Browbeat, and..." He looked me over real quick. "You don't really fit his body type."

I couldn't help but to laugh at that, which got Chris going.

"So, are you a brainiac?" Chris asked.

I shrugged. "I guess you could say that? I mean, I manage good grades. My mom was a teacher, so it was kind of instilled in me from a young age."

"What kind of teacher?" Chris asked.

"English." I replied.

"Ahh, so you a big reader?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I've read my fair share. You?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I mean, not unless it's something that I need to research."

We made it to our classroom about a minute before the bell. I found a seat toward the middle of the room. A seat with no glue or juice on it.

When the teacher came in, she didn't even have me introduce myself, which I was fine with. And, it made sense. If Wards transferred in, occasionally, you wouldn't want to draw attention to the new students. Which, of course, didn't stop people from noticing me.

The rest of my classes in the morning proved to be much the same. I would go in, get a few quick glances, and then nothing. Some people might not like that, but after the torment that I had endured for the past couple of years, I was in heaven.

When lunch came, I made my way to the cafeteria. It may sound dumb, but I was excited to eat in the cafeteria. That had been one of the first things I had stopped doing when the torment started to get bad.

I fetched my lunch, which surprising looked really good for a school lunch, and found an empty table to sit at. After a few minutes, I was surprised to see someone sit down across from me. Two people, actually. One was Chris, and the other was...Panacea. I had to work to keep my eyes from bugging out. If the pair noticed, then they were kind enough to not point it out.

"Hey, Taylor. How's your first day going?" Chris asked.

"Oh, um...fine." I said. "It's interesting adjusting to the new curriculum, but I think I'll manage."

"Cool, cool." Chris said. "Oh, this is Amy." he added, pointing to Panacea. "She usually has her nose buried in a book, so I figured you two would get along."

I could see Panacea...Amy, roll her eyes. "So much thought goes into your plans..." she said.

I laughed a bit, but felt uncomfortable. Did she not want to be here?

"Admittedly, pre-planning has never been a strong suit of mine." Chris said.

Amy shook her head and looked at me. "Um...read anything good lately?" she asked. It seemed she was as bad at this as I was.

We spent the rest of lunch discussing books we had read. It turned out we did actually like a lot of the same books, so...I guess Chris earned points there. I was a little curious as to how he became friends with a known hero. Maybe they knew each other before she triggered?

After lunch, I found more of the same treatment in my classes as I had in the morning. Even in gym, I was barely met with a glance. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Amy was in my gym class.

We were to run laps today, so I hung with Amy while we ran. I found that I had to slow myself down so that she could keep up, and I had to stop myself from laughing at the notion. I was able to easily outpace a known hero.

With gym over, I collected my things and headed to the nearest exit. I pulled out my phone and saw a text from Lisa, informing me of a meeting as soon as I was able, and a text from Dinah asking if we could head over to the base together. I responded to Dinah, letting her know which exit I was closest to, and waited there. After a few minutes, she turned up and we headed out.

"So, how'd you like it?" Dinah asked.

"It was...way better." I said. "Like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was nice to go a day without the feeling of impending doom."

Dinah nodded. "That's good. You meet anyone? New friends?"

"Well, the boy who showed me to my math class, Chris. He sat with me at lunch, and introduced me to Panacea." I said. "They're both pretty nice."

Dinah nodded. "I've seen Panacea around school. Obviously." she said. "She usually hangs around her sister."

I shrugged. "Well, Glory Girl wasn't with us." I said. "Anyway, wonder what the meeting is about."

'

'"I checked the numbers." Dinah said. "One hundred percent chance it's a job."

"Well, no margin of error there?" I asked.

Dinah shook her head. "It's rare, but...yeah. It's gonna be a job."

I nodded, taking that in.

"The real question is whether Rachel will let me play with her dogs again once the meeting is over."

I laughed at that. Dinah had taken a liking to Rachel's dogs. Apparently, her parents wouldn't let her have one. After a few hours of Dinah's puppy dog eyes, Rachel had given in and let her play with Angelica. It was like seeing a kid on Christmas morning.

When we arrived at the base, everyone was already gathered in the common area.

"So, what's the job?" I asked.

Lisa looked surprised for a moment, then looked at Dinah. "You remove all the fun from situations like this." she said.

Dinah shrugged, dropping her backpack next to the door and heading over to one of the couches to sit down. I did the same.

"Well, you may or may not have heard, but the Protectorate and PRT are putting on a little party Wednesday night to celebrate the ABB being taken down." Lisa said.

"And they didn't even invite us." Alec said, shaking his head.

"Okay..." I said. "So, what's that have to do with us?"

"The boss suspects that something is going to happen. Someone's gonna hit the party or something." Brian said. "He wants us to keep an eye on it."

"Someone's going to attack a party full of Protectorate Capes?" I asked. "Who would do that? You'd have to be really stupid to try something like that."

"Or really tough." Brian added.

"Well, I haven't told you all the best part." Lisa said. "The boss really wants us to do this. So, he's upping the reward ante. He's offering a smooth $250,000 to do this. Each."

I nearly choked at that. "$250,000? That's...that's insane."

"It is." Brian said.

"Unless he's sure that something is going to happen." Lisa said.

"It's gotta be something really bad to offer that much." I said.

"No, no...look at it this way." Lisa said. "If someone hits this party, and the Protectorate can't handle it? They look bad. That's a blow to their reputation. And if we can show up and save them, that's a boost to ours."

"And if we can't save them, then we look bad too." Brian said.

"Not really. We show up, we try to help against the people who were able to take down the Protectorate. We might not look great, but we won't suffer the same way they will. Besides, I believe we can do it."

"I don't know." Brian said.

"There is a way we can find out." Alec said. "Yo, tiny, wanna give us some numbers?" he asked, looking at Dinah.

"My name is not tiny." Dinah said, folding her arms. "89.527% chance someone attacks the Protectorate party, 82.724% chance that the Undersider's presence will make a positive difference."

Brian sighed. "Okay, okay. Guess we vote like usual?"

"That's a shit load of money." Alec said. "I'm in."

"Me too." Rachel replied.

"Obviously I'm down." Lisa said.

"That's a lot of money." Dinah said. "And the numbers say we'll do well. I say do it."

Brian looked to me, and I just nodded.

"Alright." Brian said. "I guess we should do some research and planning."


	17. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

As it turns out, stakeouts are boring. Really, really boring. Especially when the spot that you're watching is a party.

"This kinda blows." Regent said, vocalizing my thoughts.

"For $250,000, I'll take a night that blows." Grue said, looking through the binoculars he brought.

"Did the boss happen to say when this thing is supposed to go down?" I asked, looking over to Tattletale.

She shook her head. "Nope, just that something is gonna happen."

I sighed and leaned back against the air conditioning unit that I had set up next to. I could tell that Rachel was feeling just as bored as I did.

"Hey, I see something." Grue said.

"What's up?" Regent asked, sitting forward.

"Some people on the roof, looking down into the party." Grue said. "Don't really recognize them..."

"Lemme see." Tattletale said, grabbing the binoculars from grew. She stared for a moment, then nodded. "The Travelers."

"The ones who hit the bank last week?" Bitch asked.

"The very same." Tattletale said. "Kinda troublesome. They're pretty tough from what I've heard and researched."

"What are they doing?" Regent asked.

"They just busted into the party." Tattletale said. "Your dogs ready, Bitch?"

Bitch nodded and we saddled up. The feeling of riding the dogs alone was pretty rough. They didn't seem to change with riders in mind. If not for the horns made of bone that protruded all over their bodies, it would be impossible to ride them.

And the fact that they were jumping from building to building, digging their claws into the sides of buildings to climb up when they couldn't make the jump easily. It was not my ideal way to travel, but it got the job done.

When we made it to the roof where The Travelers had been a few minutes before, we glanced down into the party to get stock of the situation.

There were a number of Protectorate capes in there: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Velocity, and Triumph. Along with Clockblocker, Vista, Gallant, Shadow Stalker, and Glory Girl (Though she wasn't in costume, so maybe she was just trying to enjoy the party?).

And, even with all of those heroes present, it was obvious that The Travelers were winning. Only Armsmaster and Miss Militia of the Protectorate were standing, and the Wards were being held back by one of The Travelers. Sundancer, according to Tattletale.

"Well, this looks like it's going well." Regent said.

"Shall we get down there?" Tattletale asked.

"Shouldn't we...scope this out more? Get some intel?" I asked.

"If we wait much longer, our friends from the Protectorate may end up dead." Tattletale said. "Besides, hit and run is our specialty. Grue, wanna hit the lights? You and Skitter can go down first, since she can see with her bugs. Skitter, take down Sundancer? Grue, go for Ballistic, the guy in the armor. They're the two biggest threats we can deal with quickest. Once that's done, we'll join you."

Grue and I looked at each other, and nodded. Grue sent some darkness down into the party, which was followed closely by my bugs. Once the room was full, Grue and I dropped down into the room on Judas and hopped off, heading for our targets.

I could feel that Sundancer was panicking, but to my relief, she wasn't using her power. Tattletale said that she was a powerhouse, and could easily wipe everyone here out. I took out my baton and snuck over to her, and struck at her. She went down easily, and I silently rejoiced at that. I reached down and cuffed her arms behind her back with a zip tie, which would hopefully keep her from getting back into the action if she woke up.

Feeling around with my bugs, I could sense Grue pushing Ballistic to the ground and tying his arms as well. We each moved to the center of the room, and Grue dispelled his darkness. When the darkness was completely gone, there were gasps from the onlookers. The remaining two Travelers, on the other hand, looked pretty angry. Or, as angry as a man in a mask and a four armed gorilla could look.

"Well...didn't know that there was going to be backup so quickly..." the man in the mask and top hat, Trickster, said. "Figured we could get in and out before this happened."

"Well, you know..." Tattletale said, as she, Regent, and Bitch landed on the two remaining dogs. They climbed off the dogs, and she continued. "We were in the neighborhood, figured we'd drop in."

"So glad to have you..." Trickster said. He then turned to the gorilla, who Tattletale had said was Genesis. "You wanna take care of them while I free the others?"

The gorilla didn't have a chance to react before Bitch let out a harsh whistle and her dogs launched toward the beast. It looked strong, but it didn't stand a chance against the three empowered dogs.

Trickster shook his head and sighed. "Well, shit..." he said. "This isn't going well." He looked toward Grue and then...Grue was where he had been. I had no time to react before I felt an arm go around my neck. Looking up, I could see Trickster. To my right, aimed at my head, was a gun.

I inhaled sharply. I knew spider silk was strong. Supposedly stronger than kevlar. I didn't really want to test that. Not with a shot to the head, anyway."

Grue looked like he wanted to rush us, but Trickster waved his gun and he stopped.

A long, tense few seconds passed. I glanced around the room, and saw that none of the Protectorate capes were moving. Sure, this had all happened pretty quickly, and the villain now had a hostage, but...come on.

Suddenly, Trickster's arm convulsed and shifted away from me, and the gun flew from his hand and landed a few feet away. I felt him release me as his other arm convulsed. I didn't need much more of a prompt than that. I moved away from Trickster, enough to be in a good position, and swung at him with my baton. I struck him in the side of the head and he fell, unconscious, to the ground.

Tattletale walked over to confine Trickster, and I turned toward Regent. "Thanks for the save." I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Well, if no one else was gonna do anything." Regent said, shrugging. I noted that he said it louder than he really needed to.

Grue walked over to rejoin us, followed closely by Armsmaster and Miss Militia.

"Um...thanks for the save, Undersiders." Miss Militia said.

"No problem." Tattletale said. "You're just lucky we were in the neighborhood even though we weren't invited to this shindig."

Armsmaster growled a bit before responding. "This is a fundraiser banquet."

"That you happen to be using to promote the fact that the ABB is taken down. But we got left out. Along with most of New Wave, though I can see Glory Girl is here. Hi Vicky."

Glory Girl waved, but remained silent.

"Please...don't act like this was an attempt to diminish your contribution. All reports indicated that your team played a pivotal role in bringing the ABB down." Armsmaster said.

"Hey, no need to get so defensive. No hard feelings or anything. Just saying, you're lucky we passed by and saw the Travelers on the roof when we did. Things could have gone poorly if we hadn't." Tattletale said.

I tuned out Armsmaster's rebuttal and looked around the room. Bitch and Grue were gathering the Travelers up, the majority of the Protectorate capes were checking on civilians, the Wards had gathered and were talking. Well, most of them. Shadow Stalker seemed to be taking a cue from the older capes and checking on civilians.

And I almost lost it when I saw who that civilian was. Emma Barnes. My best friend turned worst enemy. I noticed them both turn our direction, and they glanced at each of us. I had turned away from them by the time they looked at me, and only knew they were through my swarm. This was one of those times that I really wished I could hear through them.

Either way, I was curious. Why was Emma talking to Shadow Stalker. With the amount of time they were interacting, it was more than a hero checking on a civilian. I was going to need to look into this.

"Anyway." Grue said loudly. "We should head out. Less heroes out on the street tonight. Better get back to patrolling."

"And don't worry about these guys." Tattletale said. "We'll haul them in."

Armsmaster still looked angry as we loaded the unconscious Travelers onto the dogs, and climbed on ourselves. The dogs launched back up through the ceiling and we headed back to the street. I idly wondered for a moment why we didn't just use the elevator until I realized the dogs would probably not fit.

To my surprise, Tattletale lead the way when we hit the street, and we weren't headed to the PRT building.

We followed her to a parking garage, and she climbed off once we were inside. We followed suit, and Grue was the first to speak.

"What is this?" he asked. "Why are we here?"

"Just following directions." Tattletale said.

"What?" I asked, stopping as I heard noises. Looking toward the source of the noise, I saw Circus and a man in power armor approaching. I recognized the latter as Trainwreck. Both were independent villains.

Everyone took a ready stance, anticipating a fight. Everyone except Tattletale, anyway.

"Please, Undersiders." A calm voice called. "Relax. These two will not attack you."

"Why should we believe that?" Grue asked.

"Because they are on my payroll." the man called, stepping out from the darkness. He wore a black bodysuit with the image of a white snake going from one ankle to his forehead. I recognized him. He was one of the villain leaders in the city. Coil. "As are you. It wouldn't so to have my employees attacking each other."

We all flinched a bit at that.

"Excuse me?" Regent asked. "You're our mysterious boss? A villain is funding a team of heroes?"

"Indeed. I am funding your team, Circus, Trainwreck, and The Travelers." Coil said. "I'm sure you have questions, which I will be happy to answer. Trainwreck, Circus, please take the Travelers, save Trickster, to the PRT van we have ready. I trust that you can orchestrate their escape in such a way that their leaders absence won't be noticed?"

The pair nodded, and collected the unconscious Travelers from us.

"Undesiders, please bring Trickster and follow me." Coil said, walking toward an armored limo. Tattletale followed without hesitation, and the rest of us followed. I ran ahead and grabbed her shoulder.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked.

"Just...trust me. This is more or less on the level." Tattletale said. "It'll make sense once he explains."

I was conflicted, but...with everything that they had done for me, I couldn't just pass judgement that quickly. I mean, they had gotten me into Arcadia. Coil, the super villain, had helped me escape my bullying.

I guess I owed him to listen to this explanation.


	18. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

Bitch's dogs were loaded into some vans, with the promise that they would be delivered to our base before we got there. Bitch wasn't happy about that, but she agreed with some prompting from Grue and Tattletale.

Once the dogs had been loaded up, we followed Coil into his limo. I was surprised to see Oracle was already present. We had decided that she couldn't offer much to a field mission, at least not yet, and had let her stay home. Apparently Coil saw fit to collect her for this.

As soon as we were all in, he signaled the driver and we took off.

"I'm sure you all have some questions." Coil said. "With the exception of Tattletale and Oracle."

"You both knew about this?" I asked, looking at the two of them.

"Well, I have been his day to day contact." Tattletale said.

"He had some matters he wanted to discuss with me right away." Oracle said.

"So we were left out because...?" Regent asked, looking to Coil.

"I wanted to know that you could all be trusted before revealing myself to you." Coil said.

"And we've proven ourselves to be trustworthy now?" Grue asked.

Coil nodded. "Indeed. You've performed excellently on all of the missions you've undertaken. Including those I assigned to you. Even accounting for my assistance."

"Assistance?" I asked.

"Ahh, yes. Allow me to demonstrate." Coil removed 6 coins and tossed them to each of us. As we caught them, they all came up heads. When I removed and tossed my own coin, it also came up heads.

"You can manipulate probability?" Grue asked.

"Not quite. What I do is control destiny." Coil said.

"Control destiny?" Grue asked.

"Correct." Coil said.

"And...that explains why you're sponsoring a hero team?" I asked.

"Not exactly." Coil said. He then rolled down the window, allowing us all to see Brockton Bay in it's entirety. "Do you see that city? It has been ripe with conflict for longer than most can remember. I wish to apply my power to it. Alter this cities destiny. Turn it into a utopia for Parahumans."

"Sounds...nice." Regent said. "Almost heroic." I noticed Lisa smirk at Regent's comment.

"Indeed it does." Coil said.

"If that's true." I began. "If you're really after this noble goal, why be a villain? Even if it's some sort of cover, wouldn't it be easier to just be an independent hero?"

Coil shook his head. "If only the world were so black and white." he said. "Alas, the answer is not simple. There are times when one must do things that would not be viewed as good, though the outcome would be for the greater good, just as some actions that seem kind can lead to the most pain."

"So you act the part of the villain to have more leeway in how you act?" Grue asked.

"In a manner of speaking. My role as a villain allows me a certain measure of control. 70% of the arms that enter this city come through my organizations, and are then funneled only to the individuals that I designate can receive them. My careful planning leads to a stalemate, of sorts, among the non-powered gang members."

"Mutually assured destruction." I said. "They're all equally equipped, they can deal the same amount of damage to each other."

"Correct. Additionally, with my status and connections, I am able to obtain inside information on all of the villain groups more easily. For instance, at meetings between all of the villains." Coil said.

"You would use that to your advantage?" Grue asked. "Isn't that a low blow?"

Coil nodded. "It is, but when one is fighting a war, certain concessions must be made." he said. "Besides, most of what I learn merely allows me to react more easily. Very rarely do I receive information at these meetings that can tip the scales too heavily in my favor."

"But you employ Circus, and Trainwreck." I said. "And The Travelers."

"I do. I am not a foolish man. I realized, long ago, that criminals would always exist. It is impossible to do away with crime entirely."

"So you want to control it." Grue finished. "Unseat the current leaders, position your own people."

Coil nodded. "A crime free city would turn heads. A city with carefully controlled crime, however..."

"So that's the game. Embarrass the Protectorate, get your own group of heroes nice and comfy in the city. Do the same with the villains. When all is said and done, you sit on top." Regent said.

"More or less correct." Coil said. "Though I don't aim for that end goal to merely soothe my own ego. It is for the betterment of the city."

"And then what?" Grue asked. "When you finish with Brockton Bay, do you plan to expand?"

Coil hesitated for a moment. "I am...unsure at the moment. Running a city is sure to be a time consuming endeavor. It is my hope that my projects will expand, with you bringing in more heroes and more villains being recruited. Ideally more powerful individuals, so I can more easily control any potential damage."

We all paused, taking it in. I was the first to speak again. "What I don't get, is...you've been helping us. Not just with your power, but the people we've faced since I've joined? They've worked for you. We haven't really done anything."

"Untrue. The Undersiders, as a whole, have accomplished many jobs. Most before you joined, Skitter. I assure you all that I had no hand in any of those. As for you, taking down Lung and the ABB was completely you. I obviously don't have them on my payroll."

I hesitated, before nodding. "Okay, we did take on the ABB, but...wait, you emply Circus, so that means..." I looked to Oracle, and she nodded.

"He was behind the kidnapping." she said. "I was never in any real danger. I used my power just before Circus grabbed me, and had a 100% chance that I would still be at home that night. It was all set up to make my parents accept that I have powers, and get them to sign me on as an Undersider."

"And you're okay with that?" I asked.

"87.2764% chance that I am able to make the best use of my power as a member of this team." Oracle said.

"Okay..." I said.

"I do understand that this is unconventional, but I assure you that there is no deception in my words. I aim to improve this city. And, if you'll agree to it, I would like you all by my side as I do."

"How do you mean?" Grue asked.

"As I said, you've all proven yourselves. All of the capes under me have. I am now preparing to move onto the next stage of my plans. And for that, I need more from you all. I don't intend that to be a one way street, of course. I intend to give as much as I take. Whereas before you were merely employees, after tonight, if you will agree, I would see you as partners."

We were all silent again. I don't think any of us had any idea what we could say.

"And to prove what I mean, I have some ideas in mind. Tattletale and Oracle have already heard my offers, and have accepted that they are worth committing to assisting me." Coil said. "I leave it to them to tell you my offer, if they choose to later. Grue..."

Grue looked up, seemingly a bit surprised.

"I have already done a bit to assist you with the issue of your sister's welfare." Coil said. "As a partner in my plan, I would spare no expense in insuring that your home life runs smoothly, and no unexpected hiccups arise. I know a number of high profile lawyers in my civilian life. Lawyers who, simply put, do not lose cases."

I could hear Grue gulp audibly. There was no threat in Coil's words. Only a promise. A promise that things would go infinitely smoother if Grue agreed to sign on long term.

"Bitch. I know of your dogs." Coil said. "The faux shelters you have set up. I would be more than happy to provide more adequate accommodations, along with a staff, made up of individuals of your choosing, to help you make sure they all get the care they need."

Bitch didn't move, but she looked a little interested.

"Regent. Your father..." Coil said.

"Ahh. You know about him, huh?" Regent asked. He leaned back again, and his body language shifted slightly. He seemed a bit...uncomfortable? That was new for him.

"I do." Coil said. "With my resources, I'm confident that we could keep track of him. Know if he was coming. Or, if you desired, strike before he did."

"Not really the type to go looking for trouble like that." Regent said. "I guess knowing where he is could be useful."

"And, of course, your payment would continue." Coil added.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" Regent asked, a tinge of amusement in his voice.

"And Skitter." Coil said. "I admit, you are a bit vexing. First, allow me to ask. How have you been enjoying Arcadia so far?"

"Um, it's great." I said. "Much better than Winslow. Thanks for helping me get in."

"Not a problem. When Tattletale explained the circumstances that you were enduring at your previous school...Well, we couldn't allow that to continue." Coil said.

I nodded, and there was a pause in the conversation before Coil continued.

"As I was saying, I am at a bit of a loss as to what I could offer you." he said. "So, I leave it to you. Name what you desire."

I suddenly felt as though a pressure had been laid on my shoulders. "Um, that's really not necessary..." I said.

"I'm afraid it is. If this is to work as I intend, then all of us must be on equal footing. If I am to expect your assistance, then I should give you mine as well. All of the capes under me are receiving the same benefits. Including the Travelers." Coil said.

"Yeah, that's right." Trickster said, apparently choosing that moment as the best time to wake up. "And we're in all the way, provided he can keep you all from beating us so badly again. Thought you would pull your punches a bit." he added, rubbing the back of his head. How hard had I hit him?

I looked back to Coil and sighed, before being struck with an idea. "You say you want to improve the city. I want you to really do it." I said.

"Skitter, I don't want to promise you something that I already intended to do." Coil said.

I nodded. "Yeah, well...the ferry." I said. "It's been out of service for a long time."

"It has." Coil said. "The thought crossed my mind, and was on the list of improvements to make, though relatively low priority. If it means that much to you, however. I can bump it up. I can even see to it that you have a say in how things go in regard to it's repair."

I had to restrain myself before I let out an excited noise. "And...one more thing? Maybe look into the schools. See if we can get some people in there who'll actually do their jobs?"

Coil nodded. "Yes, that is a grand idea." Coil said. "Not exactly the sort of offers that I would have thought to offer, but they can be done. And, of course, if you accept, then this offer will remain on the table. Anything you need, you can come to me. Just as I would expect to be able to go to you all with my own issues."

We all looked around at each other.

"If you need some time to discuss it, I understand." Coil said.

No one spoke, but I think we all understood. Grue looked at Coil and shook his head. "No need. We're in." he said.

"Excellent." Coil said. "You were the last to hear my offer. With you on board, we can begin phase 2."

We arrived at our base moments after agreeing to the deal, making me wonder if Coil planned it that way. He bid us a good evening, assuring us that the money for the job we had just accomplished was already in our accounts.

"Guess we're big time now." Tattletale said.

"Guess so." Grue replied. "This is...kind of crazy. We work for a villain?"

"Kind of fake villain." Tattletale said. "He's more on the good side of neutral, but he really does want to see the city improve. Well, the whole world, I guess, but he's willing to start with the city and see how it goes."

"You two need to get home?" Regent asked.

Oracle shook her head. "I told my parents that I would likely stay here tonight."

"Dork?" he asked, looking at me.

"I told my dad I was staying at Lisa's, so...technically not a lie since this place is kind of hers."

Regent shook his head. "Great, more people snoring. I'm gonna go hit the hay."

"Sure." Grue said. "When you wake up tomorrow, though, we're gonna discuss this father situation of yours."

Regent let his shoulders slump. "Should have figured you wouldn't just let that slide." he said.

"In the morning though. I think we're all pretty tired and could use some time to...decompress." Grue said.

I knew I could. I was now a hero, working under a villain who wanted to turn Brockton Bay into a utopia. I would definitely need a while to fully grasp that.


	19. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

After all of the craziness of the past week, it was nice to settle into something of a normal routine. I kept going to school, getting used to going to Arcadia. I got to know Chris and Amy better, and was eating lunch with them every day. I was helping Chris in Math, and keeping Amy company in Gym. She was getting a little better with each class, I noticed. Though, she was still strangely out of shape for a superhero.

Outside of school, I was mostly spending time with my team. I found it easy to connect with Brian and Lisa. Lisa had taken me on a few more shopping trips, and was more than happy to 'suggest' clothes for me to get.

Brian had taken to training me, since Alec had given up on his lessons. The training was intense, but I was definitely feeling more confident. And, I didn't mind the close contact with Brian. I had also helped him build some furniture for his apartment. I had also, that day, met his sister Aisha. She was...interesting. She also knew Brian was a cape, and by extension, knew I was a cape.

Dinah was easy enough to get along with, but she always seemed a bit out of it, either from using her power, or from the headaches her power brought.

Alec and Rachel, on the other hand, were tougher to get closer to. Alec just seemed...apathetic toward everything. He spent most of his time not in the field playing video games. Conversely, Rachel spent much of her free time out of the base, taking care of stray dogs.

And that was where Dinah and I found ourselves today. We had asked Rachel the previous night if we could help her out, though each for different reasons. I wanted to improve our team dynamic. Dinah just liked the dogs.

On our way to the spot Rachel had told us to meet her, we picked up some food. It had taken some prodding to get any sort of indication of what Rachel would want to eat, and even then I needed to ask Lisa for more clarification.

It took us about half an hour to reach the spot, and we found Rachel looking over the dogs. We gave her her food, and then set to doing the work she gave us. I found a number of them had fleas, and removed them with my power. Aside from that, we fed and bathed a few, and then played with them, which Dinah enjoyed.

After about an hour, we heard a commotion outside of the building. I felt out with my bugs and found a group of four men coming our direction. I told Rachel and Dinah about it.

"62.392% chance they start trouble." Dinah said, petting one of the dogs.

"Bastards..." Rachel said, marching toward the door.

"Rachel, wait." I said, running after her. "We shouldn't engage them unless we need to."

"Not gonna let them come in here and start shit." Rachel said. "Brutus, Jonas, Angelica." she added, whistling after calling the names. Her three primary dogs approached her quickly, and she left the building. I shook my head, gathered my swarms, and sidled up to the wall.

"You better get outta here." Rachel said. I could feel her dogs pumping up already.

"Oh yeah?" one man asked. "You gonna hit another of our fighting rings?"

I shook my head again. _Dammit Rachel..._ I thought. _Gonna need to have a chat about that later._

"You keep making dogs fight, I'll keep busting your parties up." Rachel said. "Simple as that. Now fuck off."

"Don't see why we should." the man said. "Not like we have much to lose now. Someone decided to hit our leaders pretty hard. Decided to play dirty. Might as well capitalize on that."

"You think I care about your problems?" Rachel asked. "Fuck off, or I sick my dogs on you."

"Good idea, if you want your dogs getting shot." the man said. "Wonder how many bullets they can take."

The bugs I put on Rachel told me she was growling. _Shit...I need to do something._

I gathered my swarm, and started sneaking some of them just behind the group. Within a minute, I had formed the swarm into a humanoid shape. It took about thirty seconds for one of the goons to notice the bugs. When they did, though, they almost fell over in fear.

"I'd suggest..." I tried to make my bugs say. It was...passable. It would definitely take some work to sound more legible. "That you leave."

"The fuck..." the main man said. "You're that bug freak? Skitter?"

"That's right. Helping out my teammate." I said through the bugs.

The man hesitated. "Course you are." he said. I could feel him start to reach for his gun.

"That won't help against me." I said. "And if you aim it toward Bitch, you'll regret it."

"Oh yeah?" the man asked. "How's that?"

"The Black Widows and Brown Recluses I've got crawling all over you four should be a good reason." I said.

The man hesitated. "You're lying."

"You wanna take that chance?" I asked.

The man gulped, then quickly moved toward the gun. I made my bugs bite him. I may not have actually put spiders on him, but hornets still hurt.

All four of them jumped, and backed away, going around my swarm clone. "We'll tell our bosses about this." the man said. "The Empire won't forget this."

 _Great. Empire 88._ I thought.

The men ran away, and Bitch stopped pumping up her dogs. She came back into the building.

I then made her explain what had happened. Apparently, along with taking care of strays, Rachel liked to break up the Empire's dog fighting rings and liberating those dogs as well.

Brian showed up a little while later, in costume, apparently responding to a text from Dinah. We filled him in, and he vocalized my thoughts that Rachel should fill us in when she decided to attack E88.

We then decided to head back as a group. Brian got out of his costume before we departed. It took us about 15 minutes to reach the base, and when we got in, Lisa was on the phone, and sounded angry.

"...It's not right, Coil." she said. "There are some things you just don't do."

"What's going on?" I asked.

Alec answered. "Apparently, the boss decided to do something to the Nazis."

The man's words about having little left to lose came back to me. "Uh oh..." I said.

"You can't just reveal their identities like that." Lisa said. "It's off limits... No, I know you wanted to strike at them quickly, but...No. No, it doesn't change our answer. At least I don't think so. But still, if you want us on board, you need to...Okay. Okay, thank you. Bye."

"Everything cool?" Brian asked.

"He revealed the identities of all of the E88 capes." Lisa said.

"Oh shit..." I said.

"Now they're going to react." Lisa said. "It's not the worst...It was done at a more or less opportune time. Almost like he knew when to do this for the best outcome..." she added, looking at Dinah.

The young girl, for her part, looked sheepish. "He...may have asked me a few questions." she said.

"Great..." Lisa said.

"If it makes you feel better, the odds of them responding within the next week are fairly low." Dinah said. "23.857%."

"That seems really low, all things considered." I said.

"There must be something going on behind the scenes." Lisa said. "But still, this could turn into an ABB situation all over again. But worse, because they have more capes. If we need to take them on...it's gonna be rough."

"Well, hopefully whatever is gonna keep them from retaliating right away keeps up." Brian said. "You think this is gonna be an ongoing way Coil operates?"

Lisa shook her head. "No, he was working on this before we said we were in. He seemed to accept that we wouldn't like this." she said. "I'm 90% sure he won't pull this again."

Brian nodded. "Okay." he said. "That's good. Don't want things like this to keep popping up. Dinah, you said we should be safe from them for now?"

"2.753% chance they attack us within the next day." Dinah said.

"Alright. Good." Brian said. "Let's...eat and we can discuss how we want to handle this."

We ate and discussed what we knew of E88. The others, save Dinah, knew much more than me. Lisa took the lead on the conversation. By the time we were done, it was pretty late, so I called and told my dad and told him I would be staying with Lisa.

I was shaken from my sleep at about 4 in the morning by the sound of a siren blaring. I gasped. There was only one reason for that. I ran out of my room and to the common area.

"Is it...?" I asked, looking at the others.

"Endbringer." Lisa said.

"Listen, Taylor, Dinah. We all decided, before you joined, that we would participate if this happened. We may not be able to do much, but..." Brian said.

"I'll go." I said.

"I can't." Dinah replied. "My parents wouldn't let me."

Brian nodded. "Alright. Get dressed everyone. Rachel, can you take Dinah with you out of the city? Get her to her parents?"

Rachel nodded, and headed down to the first floor.

"Is she not going?" I asked.

"Her dogs wouldn't be able to do much against an Endbringer." Lisa said. "They'd just end up dead, so...we gave her a pass."

I nodded. "Guess I better get dressed."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah."

I caught up with Dinah, our rooms were across from each other. I could barely hear her as she spoke. "26.267%"

I gulped as I took the number in. "What...?"

"26.267% chance all of the Undersiders live through the day." Dinah said.

I inhaled sharply, then nodded. "Not too bad." I said. "Could be worse, at least."

Dinah nodded, then went to her room silently.

I grabbed my costume, and noticed that my hands were shaking. "A little worse than a 1 in 4 chance..."


	20. Interlude 3

Interlude 3:

-Thomas Calvert-

The timing of this could not have been worse. It was almost as though the Endbringers had purposefully waited for him to start making strides with his plan before striking Brockton Bay. Even with his power, there was no way he could deter this from happening. It was quite frustrating.

It was not, however, a lost cause. He knew that there was a good chance of the city ending up in shambles. If that was as far as the devastation went, then he and his associates could make do. If the Undersiders firmly planted themselves in the reconstruction effort, and the Travelers used this as an opportunity to seize their own sections of territory, then...yes, it could work out quite well.

That was, of course, assuming this attack ended in the best way possible. That was why he had turned out and was sitting in the PRT headquarters. Luckily, his place as an adviser to the PRT served well in allowing him to position himself.

And he found a perfect time to use his power very soon after arriving. His power was...unique. It worked best when combined with other Thinkers, such as Tattletale and Oracle. He had, however, become adept at gauging the appropriate times to use it over the years. And the argument over whether to use the bombs seized from Bakuda's workshop after the ABB was taken down seemed perfect.

In one reality, he advocated the use of the explosives. After all, it was worth the inherent risk if it managed to play a role in putting an Endbringer down.

In the other reality, he spoke out against it. The weapons were Tinker made, and created by a madwoman on top of that. There was no real way to predict what they could do, or if they would make a difference. Better to hold off until more testing could be done on them.

As expected, he was listened to in both realities. He had earned a position of trust within these walls. Of course, that position would be compromised instantly if anyone here knew of his other life. If any one here knew that he was the supervillain Coil? Well, they certainly wouldn't heed his advice.

It took almost no time at all for the battle to begin, it seemed. Leviathan approached, and within seconds the armbands the heroes wore began reporting the fallen and killed. He waited, holding in a breath. None of his chosen associates had fallen yet. Not telling of the whole battle, but a good sign.

He took a seat at a computer and began looking through the data that was coming in. Leviathan's path, where he had struck, a constantly updating list of the fallen. So far, they were the same in both realities.

And then he heard it. _Regent down. Tattletale down._

He grimaced. That was...not ideal. But, so long as they stayed alive, it would be fine.

It was at this point that the realities really diverged. Miss Militia, armed with some of Bakuda's borrowed technology. It seemed like it may work...for a moment. Then, disaster struck.

 _Jotun deceased, Dauntless deceased, Alabaster deceased._

Troubling. Dauntless was a curiosity, but he had a lot of potential. The temptation to collapse the reality right then was present. But no, he would wait to see how this played out in the slightly longer term.

After a few moments, Leviathan was frozen in both realities. A boon that Clockblocker had been close enough and not been caught in the blasts.

Calvert leaned back in his chair. He could hear Armsmaster barking out orders, getting the capes on the scene into position for some grand plan of his, no doubt. Amazing, how little the bombs had impacted things in the grand scheme. At least so far. They seemed to only be a detriment against Leviathan.

 _Manpower deceased. Aegis deceased._

Calvert's eyes darted to the screen. Leviathan was active again. And he was cutting through the forces Armsmaster had rallied.

 _Fenja deceased. Kid Win down._

His eyes were glued to the screen. Even with the limited information, there should be some indication as to what the beast was after. If he could just...

 _Skitter deceased. Kaiser deceased._

Calvert stopped as he heard that announcement. He knew the odds. The likelihood of all of his chosen capes making it out of this unscathed were low. But still, that girl had proven to be quite resourceful so far. She had potential, and to lose such an asset so early...

"Thomas?" Emily Piggot asked him. "Are you alright? You're gripping the arm rest pretty hard..."

He looked down. She was right. The indentations from his fingers in the armrest were clear. "Yes, fine. Just...the enormity of this situation is settling in."

Emily nodded. "Of course. This is...quite different from Nilbog. That was a nightmare, but this..."

Calvert nodded. "Yes. It's more akin to a natural disaster. Nilbog seemed attainable. Like he could be handled. This...?"

He glanced to the monitor again, and was about to speak when he heard the alert.

"Armsmaster down, CC-7. Leviathan is heading Northwest."

He knew that voice. Had had a conversation with her just days ago. He couldn't help but allow himself to smile. And how fortunate that she survived in the reality where the bombs had not been used. He collapsed the reality where the bombs were issued and sighed in relief. His plans wouldn't be as interrupted, it seemed.

Emily walked away to issue some more orders, and he turned his attention back to the screen in full. Now that they had found Leviathan again, they could track his movements here. And it seemed...

He felt himself grip the armrest again.

The monster was headed straight for his...Coil's base.

But why? Could it be...Noelle?

He swallowed hard. If Leviathan was after Noelle, and she got out...it would be a disaster.

It was fortunate that the Endbringers seemed to have no problem derailing themselves, as reports flooded in of Leviathan attacking a shelter.

He was trying to think of something, anything to suggest. Some way to use his power to give them an edge. To help drive Leviathan away. To keep it away from his base.

"Reports are coming in..." Someone said. He couldn't bother to figure out who. "Some fliers have reported sightings of the Nine approaching the battleground."

Calvert paused, loosening his grip on the armrest.

"ETA?" Emily asked.

"Estimated time for first contact...2 minutes."

"Tell all capes to pull back. We do not want them getting caught in the crossfire here." Emily said.

Calvert nodded. This was...acceptable. He leaned back, and folded his hands. The battle would be over soon, and then...he would need to do something about Noelle sooner than anticipated. Perhaps it was time to put himself in a bit of debt...


	21. Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

I gasped for breath as I was hauled out of the water. Looking up, I was surprised to see Bitch holding me up. She looked upset. Looking toward Leviathan, I could see why.

8 of her dogs, all pumped up with her power, were attacking Leviathan, and were fairing about as well as could be expected.

"Bitch, I..."

"Are you alright?" she asked, not taking her eyes from the scene.

"Think my back might be broken. Among other things." I said.

She didn't say anything, and I didn't either. I had watched some of the strongest heroes in the world attack Leviathan, and they could barely scratch him. The dogs didn't stand a chance. It was over in a moment.

When the last of the dogs was slain, Leviathan seemed to turn toward us. I lowered my head. Even after Bitch showing up, we were still going to end up dying.

I looked up again just in time to see Leviathan swiping toward us, relying on his water echo to deal with us. I closed my eyes, and could feel Bitch tense up. We both waited for the attack to strike...

And nothing happened. When I opened my eyes, I saw a strange barrier in front of us. It was pale white, and looked almost like...bone?

"Seems we arrived just in time." A voice said from just behind us. "Quite fortunate for you two."

"Bitch turned around, growling a bit at the man. He seemed almost bored. "One of my associates is assisting with collecting the injured. I've sent her an alert already that we need a pickup."

A minute later, a...mechanical spider appeared. It was flat on the top, and large enough for a person to lay across the top. When the man spoke again, he indicated that that was the exact purpose.

Bitch was hesitant at first, but finally relented to place me on it. Some restraints popped out of the top, securing me down, and it began climbing up a building. I was nervous, but it was better than staying near Leviathan.

Looking toward the Endbringer, I watched as cuts opened up all over him, for no apparent reason. As I was brought higher, I could see a large monster attacking it's legs. I could also see a white figure striking at it, jumping off of buildings to continue assaulting.

I almost kicked myself that it had taken me this long to realize. These were members of The Nine. The man with the bone shield was Marquis, the gashes appearing all over Leviathan was the work of their leader Jack Slash. The monster and white figure were Crawler and Sphere. And this spider must be the work of Bonesaw.

That was a relief. The Nine were the only group capable of consistently pushing the Endbringers back. And they happened to be in the area, as luck would have it.

I could already see Leviathan beginning to fall back. That was good...

My last thought as I faded into unconsciousness was a hope that my friends were okay.

-Later-

I awoke to find myself in laying in a hospital bed. Looking around, I saw that the curtain separating the room was pulled, so if there was another person here, we couldn't see each other. A nurse came in, and was apparently surprised to see me awake. She checked my vitals and then rushed out before I could really ask her any questions. A few minutes later, Panacea entered.

"I need permission to heal you." she said.

"Um, okay, sure." I said. "Can you tell me..."

Panacea shushed me and tried to find how to separate my mask from the rest of my costume. With some guidance, she was able to touch my skin and start healing me. She rattled off the list of injuries I had sustained, which I barely listened to.

When she was finished, I found my chance to speak. "Um, have you seen my teammates?"

"No, I haven't." she said. "Not that that means anything. Bonesaw has been fixing people up between bouts of tailing me."

"Is...is the battle over?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's over. The Triumvirate and The Nine were able to push him out pretty quickly." Panacea said. I noted how different she was here as opposed to at school.

"Okay." I said. "Thanks for the info."

Amy looked at me for a second, and I worried that she may have figured me out. I hadn't even done anything to disguise my voice.

"No problem..." she said. "I've got other people to go deal with, so..."

"Right." I said. "Thanks again."

Panacea left, and I was left alone with my thoughts. Wondering if my teammates had made it. Wondering if my dad had made it. Wondering if...

"Hey, you up?" I heard the familiar voice of Grue ask.

"Grue! You made it. The others?"

"All fine." Grue said. "Relatively speaking. Lisa got a broken leg. Low priority, so the healers haven't hit her yet. Regent is banged up. Bitch...she's physically fine, but..."

I nodded. "Yeah, her dogs."

"She told us about what happened. " Grue said, nodding. "Glad she did, but...she's not handling it too well."

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. "You all healed up?" Grue asked.

"Mmhmm. Panacea was here a few minutes ago." I said. "Fixed me up, so I think I'm good to go."

"Alright. Guess we can head out. If we can pry Tattletale away." Grue said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She's loving this. So many people around, she's practically rolling in information." Grue said, shaking his head.

I followed him out of the room and down the hall. We found Tattletale, Regent, and Bitch talking to Legend and Armsmaster. I gasped as I saw it. Tattletale was just having a casual conversation with Legend? And Armsmaster, I supposed, but I had talked to him, so some of the majesty was gone.

"And here's perfect proof. You heard the recording from the Armband." Tattletale said. "If Skitter died, why is she right there?"

All eyes shifted to me, and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. "Um...my armband broke."

"Did it break, or was it destroyed?"

"This accusation is base..." Armsmaster began, before being cut off by Legend.

"Continue." Legend said.

"Armsmaster had a neat little prediction system installed in his suit. Let him fight Leviathan one on one. And what better way to recover from the hits the Protectorate has taken than to take down an Endbringer? So what if some villains and a new hero who's part of an independent team have to be taken down to do it?"

"Oh no..." Miss Militia said.

"This is ridiculous." Armsmaster said. "Plenty of heroes were hurt..."

"Yeah, and that was an accident on your end." Tattletale said. "For what little credit that's worth. You guys can take Skitter's armband to check it for EMP damage. He used one to keep people from reporting Leviathan's position."

Armsmaster looked like he was about to have a breakdown, practically growling. He reached for Tattletale, only to be blasted to the ground by one of Legend's blasts.

"Thank you for the information." Legend said, taking my armband. "We'll look into this right away, and deal with it as needed.

Tattletale nodded. "Well, I guess we're done here. I'll have to see if Panacea will patch me up later, once the rush has died down."

We all started away, and Grue was the first to speak once we were out of earshot of others. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

"Saw some corruption, checked with the boss, he wanted me to help deal with it." Tattletale said.

"He really sacrificed them? Tried to sacrifice me?" I asked.

Tattletale nodded. "He's obsessed with glory. He was willing to do whatever it takes to be in the spotlight. We showed him up. Some villains die, we probably take some time to grieve, he takes down an Endbringer. The Protectorate would look really good."

I looked down. That was hard to swallow. Armsmaster had been one of my idols growing up. And he was willing to let me die to make himself look better?

If I had any doubts about joining Coil fully, they were gone. We could change the Bay for the better. Not just in regard to villains, but get rid of the shitty heroes too.


	22. Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

Everyone knew how devastating an Endbringer could be. Objectively at least. We had all heard about the fallout that resulted from their attacks. The Simurgh was the worst, but they all left wherever they attacked ravaged.

Even knowing all of that, seeing it was another thing entirely. Over the past few days, all of my costume time had been devoted to trying and make small steps toward restoring normal life. The Undersiders as a whole had been out almost constantly. Our talents were particularly suited to search and rescue. Tattletale, Bitch and myself in particular. Oracle was good at it too, but in a grander sense.

My out of costume time, though? That was mainly spent sleeping. Luckily, the schools were closed, so I could actually recover from all of my excursions. Whenever I happened to be awake, and that time overlapped with my dad being home, I spent time with him. I had been worried that he hadn't made it through the attack, but he had gotten to a shelter with plenty of time.

Now, however, I found myself walking around, just...surveying the damage. We had plans to hit the town in full later to try and get some more work done, so we were all enjoying some down time until then. I didn't know what the others liked to do, except for Rachel and Dinah. Rachel had her dogs, and Dinah had her parents. The others, even Lisa and Brian, who I was really close too, were mysteries.

Brian had his apartment, which had made it through the attack. Which was good, since he had spent so much time and money fixing it up for...some reason. It didn't make much sense to us, since he spent a lot of time at the base and he was the only one who would really see his apartment. I had been there a couple times, but most of our hanging out had been at the base.

Me, though? I liked to just walk around. Even ignoring the morning runs that I was still taking, walking was just...relaxing. Even with all the destruction that was still being cleaned up.

An eerie sort of calm had taken the city. I mean, it helped that the Nine were still in town. They generally helped with the cleanup after an Endbringer attack. We had run across a couple of them over the past few days. Crawler was hard to miss, and Sphere and Shatterbird seemed to be moving from one side of the city to the other constantly.

I made my way to Captain's Hill, as I had on a number of my walks since the attack. There was a sort of peace to be found at the memorial. It was almost like it was hallowed ground. I made my way up to it, scanning it for the names I recognized. Not that I needed to. I pretty much had their locations memorized at this point.

Aegis' death was one of the ones that hit closest to home. We had worked with him directly when facing the ABB. I knew that the loss of one local Ward was considered good, but...it still sucked. I had heard that a couple of new Wards were being brought in, under the assumption that things were going to get tough around here once the Nine left. One from Boston and one from New York. Apparently the Boston guy was gonna be the leader for a bit. Not much of a change. Maybe a few weeks earlier for Clockblocker to take over leadership for his few months, then passing the reigns to Gallant.

The villains, Kaiser and Fenja? They were tougher to miss. I did gain respect for the fact that they turned out for the fight. Giving their lives to help out? Well...I guess everyone had redeeming qualities.

Velocity was lost as well. That combined with Armsmaster being taken away left the Protectorate in tough shape. That was another reason for the new Wards. More backup for the heroes who were left.

Shielder of New Wave had been killed as well. And Flashbang had been badly injured. Something that apparently took him out of action for good, if the rumors were true. As a result of that, New Wave was on...something of a hiatus. We had seen Glory Girl out a few times. She had mentioned potentially joining the Wards. No word on that from Amy.

Our group had gotten off incredibly lucky. No deaths, no permanent injuries. It was one of the reasons we were being so proactive about helping out. We were, realistically, in the best shape to help.

I got to the end of the list. Where Rachel had carved the names of her dogs. I had caught a few people complaining about the vandalism. I had corrected some, but...it was hard to do without potentially giving something away.

Rachel had recovered, slightly, from their deaths. It would be a long time until she fully recovered, I'd imagine. The only of her three main dogs left was Angelica, and that was pure happenstance. She had left Angelica at the base when going to check on her other dogs. When she decided to come to the fight, she brought Judas and Brutus, and 6 of her better trained dogs.

I ran my hand along the hastily carved names. I owed my life to them and Rachel as much as the Nine.

It was almost amazing how we were supposed to just carry on now as though things were just normal. Almost like we should ignore the dead and just move on.

I was about to start heading back when I heard a voice. A voice that caused me to become instantly on edge. "What are you doing here, Hebert?" Sophia asked.

I sighed. She was just about the last person I wanted to deal with. It was probably considered sad that after facing down an Endbringer, I was still put off balance by seeing a normal girl my age. But...It was my innate reaction.

I slowly turned toward Sophia, giving her a flat stare. "Just...looking at the memorial." I said. "Paying respects."

"Well, get outta here." she said. "You're gonna get your patheticness all over it." Sophia said, sneering. Her insults were always lacking when Emma wasn't around. Speaking of...her absence made me wonder what had happened to her family during the attack. Not that I was worried about her personally, but...no one deserved to die like that.

"I was just leaving." I said.

"Good, don't want to associate anything to do with you with this place. Real fighters earned their place on this stone. You could never hope to compare to them." Sophia said.

I thought about her words, and the fact that if things had gone differently, my name could have been on that monument. Almost against my will, I let out a short laugh. Sophia quickly turned her head toward me, looking angry. "The fuck are you laughing at?"

I shook my head, and started walking away. I barely had time to register the footsteps before I felt her collide with me, and I was on the ground. She flipped me over, still holding me down, and I could see anger on her face. It took too much of my focus to keep my bugs at bay.

"You fucking think you can laugh at me?" Sophia asked.

I thought for a moment. I was in a pretty bad position, but...somehow I couldn't not say anything. "I was just paying my respects to the people who died against Leviathan. You're the one who came over to me and started shit. So, yeah, I laughed. Because you're pathetic. You won't even respect this place and let go of this petty shit you and Emma started against me for 5 minutes? Grow up." I said, taking a few gasping breaths at the end of my rant.

For a second, Sophia looked completely shocked, like she couldn't handle what I had said. Then, she got over it. The blow to the face sucked, but I had been through worse. Having a monster break your back was pretty tough to top.

When I didn't react as she apparently wanted, Sophia looked like she was going to take another shot. It was only the arrival of some new people that stopped her.

"What the hell is going on here?" Amy asked, walking over toward us. From my, admittedly awful vantage point, I could also see Kid Win with her. Neither looked pleased.

"She...she was starting shit." Sophia said.

"We've been here for a bit..." Kid Win said. "She didn't do anything."

Sophia opened her mouth, but then closed it. She moved to let me up, and actually looked...not sorry, but sheepish.

"I suggest you leave." Kid Win said. "We'll be reporting this."

I saw Sophia's fist clench, but she just turned and walked away. I turned to the pair of heroes. I had seen Kid Win periodically since the attack. Amy...Panacea, she had been MIA as far as we knew. Probably at the hospital. I pulled myself off the ground and wiped grass off of me. I then wiped at my face, and saw some blood on my hand when I pulled it away. I grimaced.

I looked to my two saviors. They both looked rough, but Amy looked exhausted. Like she hadn't slept in days. Maybe she hadn't. Was Bonesaw not able to pick up as much slack as everyone thought she could?

"You okay?" Kid Win asked.

"I'll be fine." I said. "Not the worst I've suffered."

"In general, or from her?" Kid Win asked.

"Both." I said. "Oh, her name is Sophia Hess, by the way." When Kid Win seemed confused, I continued. "For your report?"

"Oh, uh, right. Thanks. I guess I would need that." he said, laughing awkwardly. That got a chuckle out of me.

"Here, let me heal you." Amy said.

"Oh, you really don't need to." I said. "No need for you to trouble yourself, I'll be fine."

"It's nothing." Amy said. "After some of the stuff I've needed to fix recently, this'll be like a break."

"But you probably came here to pay your respects, and..." I began, only to be cut off by Kid Win.

"You did too." he said. "You were attacked for no reason, too. So...just take the healing, you know?"

I was going to continue arguing when Amy grabbed my hand. I felt the pain fade from my face. I looked up at Amy, ready to thank her, when I saw a look of surprise on her face. "What? I'm not sick, am I?" I asked.

Amy opened her mouth, looked around quickly, then back to me. "You're...recovering well from your broken back." she said.

I raised an eyebrow and then gasped. "Holy shit..." I said, realizing what she meant.

Kid Win looked between the two of us, obviously confused. "What's going on?"

"Don't tell anyone." I said, still staring at Amy.

"I...I wouldn't. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reacted at all, I just haven't been sleeping, and..." Amy said, sounding panicked.

Kid Win seemed to catch on. "Oh man, Amy..." he said. "Did you just kinda out someone?"

"I didn't mean to, I just..." Amy began, shaking her head. "I'm so tired, and..."

I groaned. "It's fine, Amy." I said. I looked to Kid Win, who's hand had moved to hover over his blaster. Apparently he wasn't sure whether I was a hero or a villain. I looked around quickly, not that I needed to, and then called a few bees to me. I had them orbit my finger for a moment and then dismissed them.

Kid Win's mouth fell open. "Holy shit." he said, turning to Amy. "Taylor is Skitter?"

"Keep it down, maybe?" I asked. I wasn't liking how cavalier they were being with this. I then stopped. "How do you know my name?"

Kid Win paused, then his face shifted to horror, then it looked like morose acceptance. "Um, it's me. Chris. From school." he said.

"Chris? Seriously?" I asked. "I guess I should have figured. You don't really change your voice or anything."

Kid Win rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I've been thinking about doing something about that for a while. Just haven't gotten to it."

"Taylor, I am so sorry." Amy said. "I really...I shouldn't have..."

"It's fine." I said, waving Amy off. "I mean, I would have preferred this not to happen, but you guys are friends." At least, I considered them friends. "And I have collateral, so if you guys reveal my identity, I reveal Kid Win's. We're even."

Amy smiled sadly, while Chris shook his head. "Damn." he said. "I guess it's fair, but...damn."

"Let me make it up to you. We can take you to lunch after we finish up here?" Amy offered. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. 3 hours until my dad got back from work. About 7 hours until I needed to head out for the night. I smiled.

"Sure, lunch sounds good." I said. I followed the pair over to the monument for them to pay their respects to their fallen teammates, silently thanking God that Sophia had been gone when Amy blurted out my status as a cape.


	23. Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

Panacea, Kid Win and I decided to head to a small restaurant a short walk from the park. We had passed a few fast food places to get there, but apparently the healer was against eating at such places. Who would have guessed?

"So..." I began trying to break the awkward silence that had settled upon our small group. "No hover board today, Ch...Kid Win?"

Kid Win took a moment to grasp that I had almost used his real name, and that I wasn't just stuttering. "Oh, no..." he said. "I kinda stripped it for parts. Needed the anti-grav components for my cannon."

"You couldn't make more?" I asked. I hadn't really worked with Tinkers thus far. When we were taking on the ABB, Armsmaster and Kid Win had been in other groups, and the Undersiders didn't have one in rank.

"I kind of hit stumbling blocks when I work on some things. The thought of making more anti-grav components just...ugh."

I nodded. I didn't really understand, but that was probably because I wasn't a Tinker. It would be like me trying to explain controlling my bugs to people. "Well, couldn't you just put the anti-grav stuff back in the board when you don't need the cannon?" I asked.

"To do that, I would need to uninstall them from the cannon, and then reinstall them in the board. Pretty time consuming." Kid Win said.

"There's no way to, like, make them snap out and in?" I asked. "I mean, then you wouldn't have to make more, and..."

I was cut off by Kid Win gasping. "Holy shit, I never thought of that." he said. "It...it's so simple, makes so much sense."

"Um, does it?" I asked, looking to Panacea. "I mean, I guess it would, but..."

"Now that I think about it, I could do the same thing with some of my guns. Use an interchangeable power source, maybe..."

"I'm very excited that you're running on this train of thought, but we can't really follow you." Panacea said. "Just...right it down and worry about it when you get back to base?"

Kid Win nodded and pulled out a notebook, and started jotting things down. Amy shook her head.

"I want to apologize again." Panacea...Amy said, looking down. "I really shouldn't have said what I did."

"Don't worry about it. I mean, I hang around you guys at school, you would have gotten it eventually." I said. "There are worse fates than two friends finding this out."

"But still, I just...I can't believe I did that. I'm usually so much better about those things."

"You look exhausted." I said. "People slip up when they're tired."

"You know..." Kid Win said, taking a moment to look up from his notes to make sure no one was listening. "The bosses at the PRT and Protectorate would probably have a fit if they knew who you were, and that I was hanging out with you."

I raised my eyebrows. "What? Why?" I asked, sounding a bit more alarmed than I wanted to.

"They see you guys as competition. And after that showing at the party...a few of them are less than pleased."

"He means Director Piggot and Armsmaster, not that the latter is in action at the moment." Amy said.

I nodded. After Tattletale's display at the hospital, Armsmaster had been pulled from duty. As far as we had observed, Miss Militia and Dauntless were splitting the duties of running the Protectorate at the moment. I had no idea if that was permanent. More than likely one would be chosen as a leader eventually. Miss Militia had seniority, but Dauntless...he had a lot of hope pinned on him. Some thought he may be able to take down an Endbringer, one day.

"Well, we're not interested in taking down the Protectorate." I said. "We're all on the same team. We're all just trying to help the people in the city, you know?"

"Yeah..." Amy said. She didn't say anything else. I wasn't sure if it was because the waiter was arriving with our food, or if it was the current state of New Wave. After the attack, which had left Flashbang critically injured and Shielder and Manpower dead, New Wave had more or less stopped functioning. Brandish had pulled back her cape activities considerably, Lady Photon hadn't been seen at all in a while, and Laserdream had barely appeared more than that. For all intents and purposes, Glory Girl and Panacea were it. They had been out constantly.

That was probably why Amy was so tired.

"So...when do you think the schools will open again, Amy?" I asked, deciding to leave the cape talk for now. I didn't want the few patrons of the restaurant to reach the assumption I was a cape. Amy not having a secret identity was a good way to subvert it. "Oh, um, you too, I guess." I added, looking to Kid Win. "At least, I assume you go to one of the schools."

Kid Win smirked, and just went back to jotting his notes. Amy swallowed a bite of her salad and cleared her throat. "I've heard it'll be a while, Taylor." she said. "There's talk of them opening Arcadia in a couple of weeks, for whoever is around and wants to go. If anyone doesn't, there will be summer classes and stuff to make up for missed time."

I nodded. It made sense. Arcadia was the largest of the schools in Brockton Bay, and was the least damaged by Leviathan's attack, as far as I could tell. But then I considered Emma and Sophia going there with me. That was a mood killer.

"Well, hopefully everyone can band together and get things fixed up quickly. I've heard the Nine have been helping out." I said, taking a bite of my turkey club.

"They have been, but...who knows how long they'll stay. Their presence alone is keeping the gangs from attacking, but..."

Amy was interrupted by Kid Win's phone going off. He glanced at it and sighed. "Gotta go." he said, looking at his food. "So much for lunch."

"Something urgent?" I asked.

"Not too urgent." Kid Win responded. "Just...Protectorate business. And I need to take my charge with me." he said, tilting his head toward Panacea. "It was nice to meet you though, Taylor." He added, holding his hand out to shake mine. I glanced around, seeing the patrons in the restaurant looking at us. I smiled and shook his hand.

"Nice meeting you, too." I said. "Amy, hopefully I'll see you before school starts back up. Try to get some rest, okay?"

Amy nodded, and stood to follow Kid Win. I glanced back down at my half eaten sandwich, then to my own phone. It was later than I had wanted to head to the base. I decided to take the rest of my meal to go and head out. No need for it to go to waste. Even if I did have hundreds of thousands to my name.

-Later-

"So you got your butt kicked?" Alec asked.

"Not exactly..." I said, leaning back on the couch. "And it wasn't really fair. I mean, I can't use my power on a normal person."

"You could." Alec said, still not bothering to look up from his game. Most people lacked clean water, but we were sitting in a building with not only that, but electricity that was being used for games. "You power is subtle enough that you could pull it off."

I was about to retort when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw the black demon mask staring at me. "Dammit, Imp...stop doing that." I said.

"What?" Imp, asked, removing her mask. Once it was off, I could see the smirk I had only been able to hear a moment earlier. "I was just gonna say I agree with Alec. You should kick this chick's scrawny butt."

"I'm not just gonna go around attacking people." I said.

"It would be self defense if she attacked you first." Aisha said, jumping over the back of the couch to sit next to me. "Even without your powers, I know my bro's been teaching you fighting shit. Use that. Knock this...Sophia?"

I could see Alec nod out the corner of my eye, then Aisha continued. "Knock this Sophia out."

I shook my head. "Speaking of your brother, where is he?" I asked. "Aren't we supposed to be having a meeting soon?"

Aisha grinned. "Yeah, I'm sure you want him here just for the meeting."

I groaned. "It was bad enough when it was just Lisa and Alec, but now you too?"

"We might stop if you just admit it." Lisa said, entering from her room.

"I doubt it." I said, turning to look at her.

"Me too." she responded, grinning.

The main door opened, and Grue walked in. He pulled off his helmet and approached, placing it on the table as he passed it. "Everyone here?" he asked.

"Have been forever, bro." Aisha said. "D is sitting in her room, being antisocial."

"I was not being antisocial." Dinah said, coming in from her own room. "I have a headache. Coil was asking me a lot of questions earlier."

"What about?" I asked. "Something big happening?"

"Nothing that'll affect us immediately." Lisa said. "More like...preemptive measures. It should be taken care of."

"73.254% chance." Dinah mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

"So, we're ready to start then?" Brian asked, heading to the fridge. He pulled out a soda. "There's actually food in here?"

"Half a Turkey Club." I said. "It's yours if you want it."

I saw him hesitate for a moment, before nodding and grabbing the bag with the sandwich in it. "Thanks."

"Ooooh." Alec and Aisha said in unison. It was almost like they practiced it.

"Shut up." Brian said, between bites of the sandwich. "Let's get started, okay? Lisa?"

"Right. So, as you know, Dinah and I met with the boss earlier. Partly about a problem he was having." Lisa said, pointing to Dinah. "Partly so he fill us in on the next phase of his plan."

"Which is?" I asked.

"Well...how would you guys feel about being landlords?" Lisa asked.

"He wants us to...manage buildings for him?" Alec asked, looking up from his game for the first time since I arrived.

"Not quite." Lisa said.

"He wants us to each reign in parts of the city." Dinah moaned out. "Be presences there, make sure things run smoothly while he buys properties and businesses."

"Isn't that kind of...fishy?" I asked.

"Sounds like it'll get us a lot of attention." Rachel said.

"Especially from the gangs." Brian added.

"The only gang still really functioning is the Empire." Lisa said. "The ABB has no capes any more, and the Merchants are...well, they're the Merchants."

"And none of them are really doing anything right now. Not with the Nine around." Dinah added.

"So, what, we take over the city?" I asked. "Just like that?"

"No, not the whole city." Lisa said. "Just half. We take the half the Protectorate and PRT have less of a presence in. The Merchants go after the other half."

"And what do we do when we take over?" Brian asked.

"We run our section. Bring in employees, run it how we want. We clean it up, basically. The Merchants do the same, though a bit more shadily."

We all looked around at each other.

"This is what we agreed to." Lisa said. "This is how we'll clean up the city."

Brian and I locked eyes for a moment. I nodded at him, and he turned to Lisa. "Alright..." he said. "Walk us through this. What do we do?"

Lisa smiled. "I was hoping you'd ask. We've already taken some steps."


	24. Interludes 4

Interludes 4:

-Panacea-

Amy was still kicking herself as she walked up the path to the front door of the Dallon household. It had been incredibly stupid of her to just blurt out that Taylor was a cape. Luckily it was just Chris with them when it happened. The three of them had gotten fairly close at Arcadia since Taylor started there. She was far more enjoyable to talk to than the girls that clung to Vicky.

And she had stupidly blurted out that she was a cape. Sure, she didn't really consider secret identities the same way that other capes did, since she didn't have one, but...no, no excuses. She had screwed up. She had let her exhaustion get to her.

Exhaustion that wasn't entirely brought on by working at the hospital. No, right now, home was as tiring as the hospital.

Ever since Leviathan struck...ever since Mark had gotten hurt.

The way Carol and Vicky looked at her, because she hadn't healed him. They didn't understand that she...just couldn't.

She had always suspected that Carol didn't really like her. The way she acted toward her, the way she looked at her...she knew it was because she was adopted. Knew it was because of her father.

Carol, through her actions, had all but confirmed the fact that Amy had always feared. That her father was a villain. Someone who had done something so unspeakable that it was difficult to even look at her.

And with Vicky now looking at her in the same way...she couldn't take it. It was keeping her up at night. She was lucky to get even a few hours of sleep a night.

She sighed and opened the door. She knew Vicky would be out until later, working with the Wards. Carol was spending much of her time at the law firm or out trying to hold onto the semblance of New Wave, not willing to accept that it was all but dead.

She had promised to keep an eye on Mark. And she meant it. She had made adjustments to his body. Made it so that things would work on a tight schedule. She hadn't been gone more than two hours, and he had just settled for a nap on the couch when she had set out for the memorial. The lunch had been an unexpected diversion, but...it had been nice to spend time around people who seemed to like her. Who didn't judge her for not using her powers.

Amy walked to the living room. "Mark, are you up?" she asked quietly. "Sorry if you needed something. I needed to run out for a bit, and..." she stopped, seeing a small figure in the living room. She recognized the girl.

"About time you got back." Bonesaw said. "You don't need to worry about Mark, though. He did wake up a bit ago, but we took good care of him."

Amy swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "How did you get in here...?" she asked.

"Oh, come on, Panacea." Bonesaw said. "A member of the Nine? We have our ways."

"Okay..." Amy began. "New question. Why are you here?"

"Well, we're sticking around town for a bit." Bonesaw said, walking closer to Amy. "And of course if I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna try and spend as much time around the only other cape I've met who has as great an understanding of biology as me. I mean, if we were to cooperate..."

Amy shook her head. "Please, I really don't have time for this. I need to take care of Mark."

"Well, actually, that's a question I had." Bonesaw said. "Why haven't you fixed him up? I mean, this should be fairly simple. I could patch his brain up in about...an hour? Maybe a little less. Not as cleanly as you, but..."

"I can't do brains." Amy said.

Bonesaw stopped, staring at Amy. "What? Of course you can." she said.

"No, really." Amy said. "I can't..."

"Panacea...Amy, I know powers. I've gotten my fair share of...volunteers." Bonesaw said, and the words caused Amy to shudder. Everyone knew what happened to villains that the Nine got their hands on. It was rarely good. Many a villain would prefer the Birdcage to becoming Bonesaw's plaything. "You can fix brains."

Amy shook her head. "Please, just...I can't do this right now. I'm just..."

"Well, it's a good thing we turned up when we did." Bonesaw said. "Clearly this is just some mental block that you need to work through. We can get you there."

"No, it's not a mental..." Amy stopped, then stared at the young girl. "We?"

Bonesaw nodded. "Well, me obviously. And I had to bring Hatchet Face, since it wouldn't be smart for a young girl like me to travel the city alone."

"Hatchet Face? But...he died." Amy said. She was about to continue when a shadow cast itself over her. Turning, she saw him. Hatchet Face, slightly rotting, but still moving. "How?"

"Oh, he got himself killed by Behemoth, sure." Bonesaw said. "But, we didn't have a replacement lined up, and I got to him quickly enough to make him useful again. We got Cherish a few months later, but I just couldn't let him go. I formed a real connection to him, you know?"

Amy shook her head. "This...is inhumane." Amy said.

"No, it's great. I mean, sure, he's rough. If you had been around, I'm sure he'd be better. Probably as good as new, really. But I made do with what I had. A shame he's probably too far gone for you to work you magic on him." Bonesaw said.

"So you two came here to..." Amy began, only to be cut off again.

"Us three, I didn't get to finish." Bonesaw said.

"Another...creation of yours?" Amy asked.

"No, no. Another member. He wanted to see you too." Bonesaw said.

Amy opened her mouth, only to stop as a figure appeared in the doorway behind Bonesaw, coming from the kitchen.

"Ahh, I see you've returned." the man said. "I do hope you don't mind, but I put a kettle on. I was in desperate need of some tea. There's plenty more if you girls would like some. I'm fairly confident Mark will suffice without." he added, sitting in one of the chairs.

"You're...Marquis." Amy said. Two members of the Nine in her home was too much to deal with.

"I am. And you are Panacea." the man said. He then allowed his eyes to glance toward Hatchet Face. "Honestly, Riley? I do believe I told you to leave him outside."

"It's damp outside. I don't want to rush him rotting." Bonesaw said. "Besides, you're the one who left to go look around. I was bored. He at least kept me company."

"And I'm sure the conversation was very stimulating." Marquis said. "In any case, perhaps return him to his place outside?"

Bonesaw huffed, but grabbed Hatchet Face's hand and dragged him toward the front door. Marquis let out a breath.

"An immensely talented girl, but a bit too overzealous at times. I told her you were unlikely to take well to him." Marquis said, before taking a sip of his tea.

"Wh-why are you here?" Amy asked, sitting on the couch next to Mark. She could see that her adopted father's eyes were glued to the man.

"I wanted to check in on some old friends and family while I was in the area. I used to be set up here in the Bay, until an...unfortunate event caused me to take to the road." Marquis said.

"And...you were friends with Mark?" Amy asked.

"Mark, Carol, all of what is now New Wave." Marquis said. "As a matter of fact, New Wave would have been quite impossible without me. Of course, they repaid my kindness with an equal, if not greater favor."

Amy looked to Mark. "They...they did?"

Marquis nodded, swallowing another sip of tea. "Indeed. I'll leave what I did out of it. No need for that story to be trudged up. But they did take in a member of my family in a time of need. For both of us."

Amy could feel the lump in her throat returning. "Wh...what?"

Marquis nodded slowly. "I wondered if they would tell you. Or whether they would hide it. Part of me hoped for the former, even as part of me wished for the latter."

"You...you're saying that I'm..." Amy began.

"Amy...Amelia. Amelia Claire Lavere." Marquis said. "My daughter."

Amy gasped, letting out a choked sob. This...didn't make sense. Marquis was a hero, not a villain. Sure, he was closer to vigilante than standard hero, but...he was a hero. Why...why did Carol react as she did?

"Have I lost you, Amelia? I do hope you don't pass out. I was quite looking forward to talking with you." Marquis asked.

"No, no. I'm fine. It's just...I...I'd like to talk." Amy said.

"We should go elsewhere, then, I believe. I did come quite unexpectedly." Marquis said. He finished off his tea, placing the cup on the table in front of him. "But, I think you have something to do first." he added, tilting his head toward Mark.

Amy looked between her birth father and her adopted father. "I can't. I don't do brains..." she said.

"Child, he's suffering as he is. I understand having limitations, having rules. But, there are...times to bend them. Or opportunities to reevaluate them. I've done it, once or twice. After all Mark has done for you, would you leave him like this any longer?"

"But...I can't...I..." Amy said, looking down.

"Amelia, being a hero sometimes means leaving your comfort zone. Doing things one would rather not." Marquis said. "And, I'm quite confident that this is within the scope of your abilities."

Amy could feel tears come to her eyes. She shook her head, then took a deep breath. She turned to Mark, and grabbed his hand. She could feel her power go to work, rebuilding his brain. Restoring his lost skills. As a bonus, Amy also eliminated his depression. Mark blinked at me as I finished.

"Amy..." he said. "Thank you." He added, wrapping me in a hug. It lingered for just a moment before he released me, turning toward Marquis. "Marquis." he said.

"Flashbang." Marquis replied. "How are things?"

"Better, now." Mark said.

"If you don't mind, I'll be taking my daughter for a bit." Marquis said. "I think we could both use some time together."

Mark said nothing, just nodding. Marquis stood, and extended a hand to Amy. She took it, and allowed him to pull her up. He led her back to the front door, where they found Bonesaw and Hatchet Face. Marquis tilted his head, and the two started off ahead of them.

Amy had always idly wondered about her father. She had, for a long time, assumed he was a villain. Now, she knew he was a hero. She knew she wasn't destined to go down a dark path. Most importantly, she was going to get some answers from him. She wanted to know why Carol looked at her with such disdain.

-Armsmaster-

Colin sighed as he finished working on tuning up his armor. It was unlikely that he would be able to use it for some time, but he still wanted to keep it functional.

He lamented his current position. It made being transferred to Chicago look like a blessing. At least there he would still be in the action. At least there he could have a chance at fixing his reputation, working back up.

Now, he was a glorified mechanic. Fixing things up for the Wards and Protectorate members. On house arrest. They might as well have shipped him off to the Birdcage.

He turned back to his workbench. Some pieces of Dauntless' armor had been dropped off for him earlier that morning. That almost made this worse. Like they were rubbing his face in Dauntless' potential, and the fact that he was still out there while Colin was trapped.

He shook his head. If not for Dragon keeping him company whenever she could, he probably would have lost his mind already.

"Colin, how are you doing this afternoon?"

 _Speak of the devil._ Colin thought. "About as well as can be expected." he said. "Going mad from being cooped up."

"Yes, I'd imagine that would become bothersome." Dragon said.

Colin inwardly groaned. His first words in this conversation and he already shoved his foot into his mouth. "I...didn't mean that to come off..."

"It's fine, Colin." Dragon said. She sounded amused, so Colin assumed there were no hard feelings. He was relieved. Dragon was one of the few people on Earth who understood him.

"In any case, I wanted to run some ideas past you, Colin. I..." Dragon trailed off, which in turn caused Colin to look toward the screen she was currently displayed on.

"Something wrong?" Colin asked.

"My sensors picked up a strange noise. It seemed to come from the air ducts..." Dragon said.

Colin's jaw clenched. Someone breaking in here?

He watched the air duct in the room carefully. He was trying to think of who could possibly get in that way. Maybe Cricket from E88. Squealer might be able to fit, but it wasn't her MO. Oni Lee was the only member of the ABB still free, and he wouldn't need to use air ducts to get around.

The grate on the duct was knocked away, and Colin reached for the model of his nano-thorn blade. It was only the size of a letter opener, but it should be able to...

His thoughts halted as he saw the glossy, white hand fall from the duct, followed by chain, then a section of arm, then more chain, and more arm. This continued until the last segment fell out.

"Sphere..." Colin said, looking at the collapsed form of the hero as he gathered himself up. It was...unnerving to watch. It made him feel uncomfortable.

Once Sphere had pulled himself together, though he still teetered in place as though he could collapse at any moment, he reached for his right arm where a keyboard was attached.

"Good day, Armsmaster...Colin Wallis." a computerized voice said. "It has been some time since we last met face to face. You have...been damaged."

Colin looked down at his arm...or lack thereof. He had told the higher ups to have Panacea focus on more needy patients. He could go without an arm for a bit. "Yes, a scar from Leviathan." Colin said.

"You are still more fortunate than many who face the creature." Sphere said. "I have reviewed the recordings of your battle with it. When you faced it one on one. It was most impressive. I would like to view your prediction software. I believe it may be of use to us in the Nine. I would be more than willing to compensate with some of my own work."

The way Sphere talked, ever since he snapped and created this new body for himself, always made Colin uncomfortable. A lot of what Sphere did now made people uncomfortable. But, even with that, the man was undeniably a genius. As a matter of fact, with Dragon viewing this scene, three of the greatest Tinkers in the world were in the same room.

"Not really my call, at the moment. I've...had most of my autonomy taken from me." Colin said.

"I have heard about your predicament." Sphere said. "What occurred during the battle. It was...an unfortunate error. Even the greatest...suffer lapses in judgement."

The voice box was unable to show emotion, and yet somehow that statement still sounded sad to Colin's ears. "This...was no mere lapse in judgement. My actions led to people dying. Nearly cost multiple heroes their lives."

"Does that erase all of the good that you have done? Does it erase all of the lives that you have saved with your past actions?" Sphere asked. "Humans are flawed. Errors are made. What is important is how one proceeds, how they plan to make amends for the errors that they make."

Colin lowered his head and looked to the floor.

"For example, I have devoted my life to working with the Nine to atone for my past mistakes. This is my path to atonement." Sphere said.

Colin opened his mouth, but no words came.

"You need not answer to me. It is a question for you to answer to yourself. Dragon?" Sphere said.

"Yes, Sphere?" Dragon asked.

"It is my understanding that you cooperated with Armsmaster to create the prediction program utilized against Leviathan. In light of this information, I believe it is fair to consider you an equal owner of the program. My offer to Armsmaster extends to you as well. I will offer you a comparable project of mine, and allow you to mass produce it as you see fit."

"I...will see what I can do, Sphere. I will reach out to you before you leave Brockton Bay." Dragon said.

"Very good. I will now bid you both farewell." Sphere said. "Consider my words, Colin Wallis. Do not allow yourself to fall to the pits of despair as many others have..."

With that, Sphere climbed back into the air duct and was gone.

The room was silent for a few minutes, before either of the remaining occupants spoke. "Colin...are you alright?" Dragon asked.

"I...I will be." Colin said. "But, Dragon... I think I'll need your help."

"I understand, Colin. And...if it's not too much to ask, I could use your assistance with something as well."

-Theo Anders-

"So... Theodore, was it?"

"Theo, sir..." Theo replied, rocking Aster as he spoke. "Only my father called me Theodore."

"Ah, of course. I apologize. I meant no disrespect, and certainly didn't want to bring up unpleasant memories. I understand it's only been a short time since your old man died."

Theo just nodded. He had heard all about this man, knew him to be one of the most renowned heroes in the world, but to see him in person? It was humbling and terrifying all at once.

"So...how long until Purity gets back? I don't want to keep my team waiting too long."

"Not too long, Mr. Slash, sir." Theo said.

"Please, call me Jack." Jack Slash said, spinning a straight razor around his fingers.

"My father always taught me to treat my betters with respect, sir." Theo said.

"Your old man raised you surprisingly well for a villain, then." Jack said. "Not that I'm entirely surprised. From the few times I met Kaiser, he seemed pretty...polite."

"He stressed the importance of respect, sir." Theo said.

"And I do have to commend him for that." Jack said. "Not gonna stop me from seizing this opportunity to strike a blow against some villains, of course."

Theo gulped, swallowing a lump that had formed in his throat.

"And I do apologize for you and your sister getting caught up in this. But I'm sure you understand. This is the type of situation where the young head of an evil empire will steel himself and try to rise up against the man who killed his mother..."

"Step mother, sir." Theo said.

Jack smirked and chuckled a bit. "Of course, step mother." he said. "My mistake. If I leave you alive, you'll just consolidate the empire and come after us. And while it would be futile for you, it would still be mildly inconvenient for us."

"Sir, I...I don't want to lead the Empire." Theo said.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Is that a fact?"

Theo nodded. "Yes, sir. I...when I get powers, since it's really likely I will, I...I want to be a hero. The kind of person who would reign people like the Empire in."

Jack's smile widened, and he leaned forward. "So...you're saying that you would become a hero and keep your father's old cohorts in line. Even send dear old Kayden to the Birdcage if need be?"

"Well sir..." Theo began. "I would try to get her to quit. She left the Empire a while ago, and only became active again recently because of a deal she made with my father. If she quit villainy..."

"Alright, alright, sure." Jack said. "Purity may quit. Leave the villain world behind, but the rest? Night? Fog? Hookwolf?"

"I...I would do my best to take them down, sir." Theo said.

Jack laughed again. "Well, you have certainly piqued my interest, boy. But...what if your baby sister...Ashley?"

"Aster, sir." Theo said.

"Aster, right." Jack said. "If she became a villain?"

"I would do my best not to let that happen, but if she went that way, then...I guess I would try to stop her as well, sir."

"Well, then. I am interested now. The son of a villain declaring that he wants to be a hero, and that he'll take down daddy's friends to do it? I'm game. So...Theo. Let's make a little bet."

"A bet, sir?" Theo asked.

"Yes, a bet. I'll give you...two years to become a hero and take down Empire 88." Jack said. "Succeed, and I'll owe you a favor. And you should know that Jack Slash owing someone a favor is quite rare. However, if you fail...me and the Nine, whoever they may be at that time, will take up arms against the empire. Yourself and Aster included, since at that point I'd just assume complacency with them."

Theo swallowed another lump.

"Do you understand, boy?" Jack asked.

"Yes sir." Theo said.

"Good. Then I suppose I'll be on my way." Jack said, walking over to the door. He opened it to reveal Kayden on the other side. She looked horrified to see Jack Slash.

"Ahh, Purity. Nice to see you, but I must be going. I believe you and young Theo need to have a chat." Jack said. "And do see about getting him to Trigger. The sooner the better, I think. I'm betting he'd be more lenient than I am."

Kayden didn't even react as Jack walked away. She turned to look at Theo.

"What was he doing here? What did he mean?" she asked.

"I...I think you should sit down for this." Theo said. "There's...kind of a lot."


	25. Chapter 21

Chapter 21:

I ran my hands through my hair as I rode in the back of the truck. Coil's men had picked me up about 30 minutes ago. We had been circling the boardwalk. The section of the city that was to be my domain. My territory.

I already had a base of operations. One of the few places in the area that actually had power. I had even gotten a say in it's decoration. A top floor for me, as Taylor, for nights when I couldn't make it home. A bed, a TV, a computer. It wasn't home, but it was nice. And, it was hidden behind a secret entrance in the floor below.

The floor below which was for Skitter. It was...admittedly, a bit dark. The others had reassured me that it fir the edgy theme of the team. I had gotten a rather large and comfortable leather chair. I had seen something like it in a movie once, and always liked the look of it. I had also gotten a number of tanks to store my bugs, which had lights installed in them. I was working on using a beetle to turn the lights on and off. I also had some mannequins to work on costumes for the others...

The bottom floor was a living area, more or less. A kitchen, a living room type of thing. Some furniture. A little room that could be used for storage or extra sleeping space.

I sighed a bit, trying to keep it quiet from Coil's men. We were supposed to portray ourselves as more powerful than them. Which was tough, considering that they were trained soldiers with guns. Plus, I was actually feeling a bit unsure.

For this plan, we had needed to separate, split up. This was the first time that I had felt alone in costume since the night I first faced Lung. It was almost like we weren't a team. We were becoming more...independent from each other.

But this was how Coil said we needed to operate. Apparently Oracle had backed him up. This had the best chance of victory. We claim territory, establish ourselves, and build up our control. We could even recruit people to help.

We had each decided on our own methods. I had opted out of hearing Regent or Bitch's methods. Imp was another wildcard, but Grue would reign her in. Lisa and Oracle were planning on using a shelter as their base of operations, but beyond that, I wasn't sure how they would work.

My method? Well, I needed the trust of the people in my territory. The good people, anyway. The people needed things. Food, medicine, basic supplies. Coil had been able to supply me with some to hand out. Not enough, but it was a start.

As we drove, I had my bugs get the attention of as many people as possible. I was directing them to a square where the truck would set up.

We arrived and the soldiers began setting up, as I gathered my swarm overhead. I knew this would look intimidating, but I knew that would be necessary to a degree. There were plenty of bad people in Brockton Bay, and it was made all the worse by Leviathan's attack. They were all out in force.

As the boxes were unloaded from the truck, and my bugs stirred people up, a crowd began to form. I wanted to wait for the right number of people. However many people showed up for this, they would be spreading the word about my intentions.

After about ten minutes, there must have been about 100 people. There were still more trickling in, but I figured there were enough. Plus, they were starting to get itchy. Several people started moving toward the boxes. They seemed to be deterred by the soldiers, but only slightly. I decided it was time to move.

I brought my swarm down to the back of the truck, and stood from where I had sat and moved into the midst of the swarm, and then dispersed them. I hoped it made it look like I could teleport with my swarm.

A few people gasped as I seemed to appear from a mass of bugs. I looked over the crowd and took a deep breath. _Here goes nothing._

"Hello, everyone." I said. "I'm sure some of you have heard of me. My name is Skitter. You may know me from my team, The Undersiders, helping to bring down the ABB." I paused, not particularly liking this next part. Tattletale and Oracle had sworn it would help, though. "Or our part in stopping The Travelers from successfully attacking the party to celebrate the defeat of the ABB."

Some people started murmuring to each other. I took that as a good sign. "This is a turbulent time for our city. In the wake of Leviathan's attack, there are certain individuals who have decided to take advantage of the current state of the city. The Protectorate can't deal with them all. Not in a city this large. Even with their numbers. That's why..."

I looked around again. I had their attention, for the most part. I also, apparently, had the attention of Battery. I hadn't even noticed her appear.

"That's why I've decided to claim the boardwalk and surrounding neighborhoods. From today, going forward, this part of the city will be under my protection." I said.

"You? Just you?" Someone asked.

I nodded. "Yes, I alone am laying claim to this section of the city. Though, my teammates may assist in certain circumstances."

"So it'll just be you? And you think you can do that? You just said the Protectorate can't even handle everything." someone else yelled.

"I said they can't handle the whole city. I believe you'll find me more than capable of handling this section myself. Besides, It won't just be me. I'll just be leading."

"So, you and a bunch of soldiers?" the same man asked.

I shook my head. "Not if I can help it. I'd rather you not feel as though you're in a prison. I'll take any volunteers. You'll be paid for your assistance, of course." I said. "Remember, I am not one of the gangs who has claimed territory before. I will not act as some Warlord. I am not the Protectorate. I am not being held to the government's bidding. I am interested, first and foremost, in your safety. You...are my people. And I will protect my people with the full extent of my power."

I looked around at the crowd. They kept their eyes on me, by and large. "And, in that same breath, I will not tolerate anyone committing crimes in my territory. No drugs, no prostitution, none of it. I am a hero, and will not allow any criminal acts. Commit a crime, or attack anyone, and you will be dealt with."

"Oh yeah?" Someone asked. "How you gonna do that, bug girl?"

I glanced toward the voice, and saw a man who was holding a knife. He was wearing torn clothes, was unkempt, and was shaking. He would fit in well with the Merchants. I knew how I would need to deal with this, and I didn't particularly like it. Not with Battery in the area.

I hopped off the back of the truck and began approaching the man. The people closest to him backed away a bit. "Are you really asking for a demonstration of how I'd deal with crime? I believe I've provided some. When I took down Lung...twice. When I helped stop The Travelers?" I said, taking out my baton and extending it. I could see, out the corner of my eye, Battery tensing. I sent a few flies to circle in front of her eyes. Hopefully she would understand that it was a sign not to act. Hopefully she didn't think it was some sort of attack.

"Yeah...well...you weren't alone, then. You had your teammates and the Protectorate, right? All you got is bugs, now."

 _And soldiers. Plus Battery standing within hearing distance._ I shook my head. "Yes, only bugs. Like the black widows and brown recluses I have on you already."

The man tensed, and shook his head. "Y-you lie." he said.

"No, I don't." I said. "Now, you've already worn out your welcome. You can leave my territory now. You have 10 minutes until they start biting."

The man paled. He looked around quickly, then took off running. I glanced over and could see Battery relax slightly as I put my baton away.

"Now, for anyone who does want to play nice, I have brought an offering. Food, and medicine. The kits are equipped for families of 4. 1 to each family. You can come up and get them. If you're interested in work, talk to the guards." I said, walking back to the truck. I hopped up and sat on the back, my legs hanging over the edge.

The first few takers were slow, but once they received their supplies, others started moving in. It soon became painfully obvious that I was under equipped for the turnout. Fights started breaking out as it became obvious to everyone. I stood, before things could escalate, and spoke up.

"Anyone who does not receive supplies now, I will mark with a ladybug. Keep it safe, and by the end of the day, I will see to it that you receive some." I said.

There was still some shoving, but people got less aggressive. I ended up marking a good number of people, too. I asked one of the soldiers to contact Coil and ask for more supplies, as I saw Battery approaching.

"Hello, Battery." I said, trying to show off some confidence that I didn't really feel. "What did you think?"

"Can't say that I was thrilled with the entire message." Battery said. "Especially not the shots at the Protectorate."

"I was just pointing out, everyone has limits. We all know things are only as calm as they are now because the Nine are still in town. Once they're gone..."

"Point, but it still didn't need to be so Anti-Protectorate." Battery said.

"I didn't hear any opposition to this plan." I said.

"We...won't turn away assistance in keeping things under control. Though, where are you getting these supplies?" Battery asked.

"Undersiders secret." I said.

She stared at me for a moment, before shaking her head. "Just...don't get in over your head." she said.

"I try not to, when possible." I responded. She shook her head again and disappeared quickly. I was about to turn my attention fully back to the soldiers and remaining civilians when my bugs made me aware of another individual. I turned, and saw Shadow Stalker approaching.

"Well, you really told off Battery." she said.

"You watch that whole thing?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, from that roof over there." she said, tilting her head to a building.

"You make a habit of observing other capes going about their business?" I asked.

"I was in the area, doing my rounds. Saw the crowd, decided to check it out." Shadow Stalker said. "Taking over a section of the city? Ballsy."

"Someone needs to stand up to the people trying to take advantage of the way things currently are." I said. "We decided we had as much right as anyone else."

"'We', huh?" Shadow Stalker asked.

 _Shit...gave away too much._ I thought. "Well, yeah. I figure it'll get out soon enough. We're all doing our parts. Anyway, what brings you here? Kind of far out of the way for a Ward patrol route."

"Had a rough couple of days, decided to pick up an extra shift. They're more lenient if you volunteer." Shadow Stalker said. "Speaking of, I was gonna go try to clean up some trash. Seems you had a similar idea. How about we hit the streets together. I get to work out some anger, you get to advance your agenda."

I could feel another person approach. Turning, I saw an older girl with red dreadlocks. She seemed nervous, and was clearly waiting for me. I turned back to Shadow Stalker, and then nodded. "Sure, I'd appreciate the help. Let me catch up with her and send the troops back, and then we can head out."

"Cool." Shadow Stalker said. "Don't take forever, though."

I shook my head as I turned toward the red haired girl. This was already shaping up to be an interesting afternoon, and I had barely even gotten started.


	26. Interludes 5

Interludes 5:

-Alec-

Alec stared out the window of his base. He could see Coil's men keeping watch, keeping the peace. Not that there would be much going on in the middle of the afternoon. He was fine with that. Having them around meant less work for him. Not that there was much of an alternative to the soldiers unless Coil wanted him to cut loose with his power. And that might just ruin the heroic image that they had spent so long building.

Alec had to keep himself from laughing at that. Hero was never a label that he had expected to be stuck on him, after all. Having Heartbreaker as a parent meant starting with a negative score when it came to reputation.

Not that Alec cared. He was pretty sure the Protectorate knew about him. It would explain why they all kept away from him when they interacted. He could have checked with Lisa, had her verify, but...he didn't care enough.

"Maybe I'll see if Imp will help me out with taking over here..." he said to himself. Of all of the members of the Undersiders, she was the easiest for him to connect with. She seemed to actually enjoy his antics, rather than just accept them.

Hard to believe she was Brian's sister.

He started heading down to the first floor of his base when his phone started going off. He picked it up and glanced at the screen. The number was vaguely familiar. One of Coil's soldiers. He couldn't remember the man's name. He answered the phone.

"Yello?"

"Regent, sir, um...there's someone here to see you." the man said.

"And...who is it?" Alec asked, reaching the bottom of the stairs.

"Cherish, of The Nine."

Alec could feel his face shift to a scowl. "Oh? Is that so?"

"Yes, sir. What...what should I tell her?"

Alec sighed and looked toward the ceiling. "Let her in, I guess." he said, hanging up the phone. It didn't take long for the door to open, and she walked in.

"Cherie." Alec said.

"Jean-Paul." Cherish said, smiling. "Long time no see."

"Yeah, been a while. It's Alec now, by the way. Or Regent." Alec said.

"Then it's Cherish, now, little brother."

"Sure. What's up? I'm kinda busy." Alec asked.

"What? I'm not allowed to visit my little brother? The big time hero of Brockton Bay?" Cherish asked.

"You've been in town for a while. Why wait till now?" Alec asked.

"Been busy. I'm pretty useful on the search and rescue front." Cherish said.

"Well, don't feel like you need to take time away from that for me." Alec said. "I won't hold you up."

"Jean-Paul..." Cherish said. "I'm here because I want to be. You know, as a member of The Nine, I have a bit of sway."

"And?" Alec asked, pulling out his phone to shoot a text to Imp.

"And...well, we're always on the look out for potential members. And I've suggested that you may be a good fit."

"Not interested." Alec said.

"...what?" Cherish asked, looking shocked. "But...they're...we're the strongest hero group..."

"And I don't really care. I'm pretty comfortable where I am. Don't see that changing." Alec said.

"This gig you have now? It's small time. We're Vasils. We're meant for bigger things. If we were on the same team, imagine what we could do."

Alec shook his head. "Sorry, not interested." he said. His phone vibrated and he glanced at it, expecting it to be a response from Imp. He was momentarily surprised to see that it was from Coil. He opened the text and read it.

 _Regent, is Cherish with you?_

Alec raised an eyebrow and responded, letting his boss know that his sister was, in fact, with him. He turned his attention back to her in time to see her approaching him. "You don't really understand, Jean-Paul. You can't just say not interested. The Nine are bigger than that. If they think you're good enough, they'll test you. And if you pass, you're in."

"Yeah, well, guess I'll have to disappoint them if they decide to test me." Alec said. His phone buzzed again, and he looked at it.

 _Bring her to my base._

That caused Alec to pause. What could Coil want with Cherie?

Another buzz.

 _There will be a bonus in it for you._

That...was even more interesting.

"Listen to me, Jean-Paul. I was nice enough to give you a warning about this. The least you can do is take it seriously." Cherish said.

Alec sighed. "Guess you're right. It's only fair." he said.

"Wh...what? Really?" Cherish asked, seeming surprised. That caused Alec to smile. It was always fun to catch her off guard.

"Yeah, let's walk and talk. My boss wants a word with you. You can hit me with your pitch on the way." he responded. "But don't try anything. I still remember how to take control of you."

Cherish seemed to hesitate at that, but then nodded. "Alright...fine..." Cherish said. "Now, to start..."

Alec rolled his eyes. Coil had better come through with that bonus. And it had better be big.

-Jack Slash-

"Where is Cherish?" Jack asked. He looked over his shoulder toward the rest of the team.

"She said she wanted to visit her brother, while she had the chance." Burnscar said. "Said it should only take a few hours, at most."

"Hmmm, less than ideal. She's had some time to visit. You all found opportunities, after all." Jack said, turning to look over the city again.

"She's been assisting many people. She's been one of the busiest of us." Marquis said. "Besides, what's a few more hours in the city?"

"Well...I suppose there are worse fates." Jack said. "It will give us more time to get everything in order."

He turned his attention to Bonesaw and Sphere. The two were arguing, and had been for some time.

"I can't believe you gave Dragon some of my formulas!" Bonesaw yelled. "Why couldn't you give her something of yours?"

"The prediction software could be of vital importance." Sphere said. "Dragon and Armsmaster were...less interested in my wares than yours. Besides, the formulae that I delivered to them were older concoctions. You have not used them for...8 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days."

"That's not the point!" Bonesaw said. "You could have at least asked me before you..."

"Have you two stocked up on supplies?" Jack asked, interrupting the argument. The two of them stopped and looked at him.

"I have purchased and traded for a number of materials." Sphere said.

"Will it be enough to last you a while? Who knows when the next time we'll have an opportunity like this will be?" Jack asked.

"More materials are always preferable to less." Sphere said, quietly.

"Excellent, then the two of you will go and stock up." Jack said.

"I don't want to go anywhere with him." Bonesaw said. "He's a jerk who takes my things and..."

"Alan, apologize for selling Bonesaw's creations without asking her." Jack said.

Sphere was silent for a moment, before dropping his head and speaking. "Apologies. I should have asked. Though, the prediction software will prove invaluable, I believe..."

"Ugh...I don't care about that. And I still don't want to..." Bonesaw began.

"Riley, please. Alan apologized. Now be a good girl and go get supplies. Take Crawler, too. He can carry your purchases." Jack said.

Bonesaw hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Alright, Jack." she said. The two Tinkers climbed onto Crawler's back and they were off. Jack glanced to the Siberian, who seemed on edge. He sighed a bit and smiled.

"They can take care of themselves." he said to her. "Especially with Crawler there. No one will try anything."

The Siberian nodded, but remained stiff. Jack turned to Marquis and shook his head.

"The turmoil of leading a team." Marquis said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

"It is a delicate act." Jack said.

The two looked out over the city in silence for a few moments. Jack was the one to break it.

"Is it strange for you? Being back in your old turf?" he asked.

"No, not really." Marquis said. "In some ways it's unrecognizable. In others, it hasn't changed at all/"

"And...your daughter?" Jack asked. He could see the other man's skin shift, bones threatening to break the surface and strike him.

"I would prefer not to speak on such matters. She is alive and well, and will hopefully thrive...whatever path she chooses." Marquis said.

"I hope so, old friend. After all, you gave up so much to giver her a chance..." Jack said.

More shifting, but Marquis restrained himself.

"The city may fall into turmoil when we leave." Jack warned.

"It's always been in turmoil. It's gotten through trouble in the past. It will do it again." Marquis said.

"I hope all of the heroes believe that as you do." Jack said. "As soon as everyone is back here, we'll have to leave. Start our rounds again."

"Of course." Marquis said. "Can't devote all of our time to one place, after all. Others may get jealous."

Jack nodded, reflecting. Marquis was invaluable, but difficult to control. He was a natural leader himself, which led to more than a little butting of heads. Luckily, Jack had learned that mentions of Marquis' old life was a nice stick to hold over him.

Jack smiled, turning toward the sunset. "Well, we also need to prepare for the next Endbringer. I'm sure the Heroes of Brockton Bay will be able to hand things here."

-Sophia-

Sophia silently moved to the roof of the warehouse, reveling in the darkness of the night. She had patrolled with Skitter for a bit before the other heroine said that she needed to go and deal with something for that red haired girl with the dreads. Something related to the Merchants. Skitter had said she and her team would handle it, and that Shadow Stalker wouldn't be needed. Sophia had decided to patrol on her own. And, if she happened to find the Merchants, so be it.

Wasn't hard to find them. Subtlety was not in their vocabulary, apparently.

She glanced down into the party and looked around. She didn't see any capes other than the Merchant leaders themselves, which was interesting. The Undersiders tended to stick out.

After a little while, she did see someone familiar.

"Hebert..." Sophia mumbled to herself. It figured that the loser would run to one of the gangs once the city got fucked up. And the Merchants were the only gang to pathetic enough to actually take her.

She also saw that blonde girl who had shown up on the day that Hebert left Winslow. Well, maybe Hebert was trying to join them for a while. Sophia really didn't care.

She then noticed the four men with them. They...didn't look like Merchants at all. They looked like soldiers. The way they carried themselves reminder her of the PRT soldiers. And they were looking to Hebert, who was giving them orders.

That...was interesting.

Sophia watched them as they moved further into the party, stopping only to apparently buy a girl. Sophia thought she recognized the girl. Someone from Winslow?

"This makes no sense..." Sophia mumbled to herself. What was Hebert doing there? With soldiers?

That was when shit started going crazy. An all out brawl broke out, and Sophia became disoriented for...some reason. Once she had her senses back, she saw that someone had apparently triggered.

Then Faultline's crew showed up, and the whole place started reshaping itself. Sophia backed toward the entrance, not wanting to engage the mercenaries. In doing so, she lost sight of Hebert and her little group.

Until they came outside, holding some papers and discussing something. The orange skinned Case 53 of Faultline's appeared and asked for the papers, which Hebert handed over. The girl that they had rescued seemed distraught, on the verge of a breakdown. Hebert was trying to comfort her, apparently, which just caused her to back away.

"What the hell is going on?" the girl...Charlotte, that was her name. Charlotte was yelling now. "What was all of that, and why were you not panicking?"

Sophia could see Hebert sigh from where she was perched on the roof. And then...then she saw something that caused her to gasp. A swarm of bugs flew over to Hebert and circled the girl.

She couldn't hear what Hebert was saying, but it really didn't matter. Sophia shifted into her shadow state and floated away from the building.

Hebert was Skitter? How on Earth could that pathetic girl be the hero who had just laid claim to a section of the city earlier that day? Who had faced off with Lung twice?

When Sophia was far enough away, she shifted back to normal and pulled out her phone. She picked the number she wanted to call quickly and held it to her ear.

Emma answered on the second ring. "Sophia? What's up?"

"I...I need to talk to you about something..." Sophia said. "You're not gonna believe it."

-Hookwolf-

Stormtiger approached Hookwolf and bowed a bit.

"Sir, our men have reported that The Nine have been seen leaving town." Stormtiger said.

Hookwolf nodded. "Send a message to Purity. It's time for us to take this city back."


	27. Chapter 22

Chapter 22:

I walked down the stairs of my base and saw Charlotte making something in the kitchen. It had been a week since I rescued her from the Merchants and she accepted my offer for employment. She had taken more of a caretaker role within my...organization? I wasn't really sure what to call this.

"What are you making?" I asked as I approached. She jumped at my voice. She was still spooked by me, even out of costume. Her initial excitement that she knew a superhero was tempered by her guilt at her impassiveness toward my torment at the hands of Emma, Sophia, and Madison. Add to that my her apprehension at my powers, and...

"Um...just making some tea..." she said.

"Enough for me?"

"Oh, yeah, or course." She went back to work while I sat down. I looked into the other room where a number of children were sleeping. Charlotte's main project. I had initially been against bringing them here, but she had worn me down. _"Where else can they safely sleep?" "With their families?"_

 _"Some of them...don't have families."_

I was shaken from my thoughts by Charlotte handing me a teacup. I took it and thanked her.

"Do you have any plans for the day?" I asked her.

"Gonna head out and do some cleanup until the supplies come, then get started on lunch and dinner."

I nodded. "I'll be away, but if you need anything, you can message me." I said, before taking a sip of my tea. "You do remember the codes, right?"

She nodded, and then pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "I have it written down."

I raised an eyebrow. "That...kind of defeats the purpose. If you lose it..."

"I won't." Charlotte said. "It's just until I memorize it."

"Try to memorize it soon."

"Okay..." Charlotte looked like I had just kicked her. I sighed.

"We don't want Tattletale to have to come up with a harder code, you know?"

"Right."

We finished out tea in relative silence. Even though it was a little awkward, I was just happy to be around someone who wasn't a Cape.

I loved spending time around my team, but most of our conversations devolved to Cape stuff.

Lisa and Alec never talked about their pasts, Brian and Aisha barely talked about their pasts, and Rachel barely talked at all. Dinah was more conversational, but the age gap made it a bit tougher to relate to her. Plus, she focused on her numbers a lot.

It was nice to be able to talk about more mundane things with someone. It had been a long time since I had that.

About 2 years.

I put my teacup down and stood up, stretching as I did. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 9. "I need to head out."

"Okay." Charlotte said. "Are you coming back tonight?"

"I should be back this evening." I said. "Maybe we'll do something special for dinner, instead of making you cook. Search around and see if any restaurants are open around here, and can supply enough for us. I'll pay for it and grab it on the way back."

Charlotte brightened slightly. "Anything in particular you want?"

"You pick. I'm good with anything."

Charlotte's smile widened, and she nodded. I smiled back, and then headed out through the secret entrance. I had to squint my eyes as I walked out into the sunlight.

I roamed the streets, taking in my territory on the way to my destination. Everything had been cleaned up pretty nicely, all things considered. There was still a long way to go, but...we were making progress.

The streets were still slightly flooded, many of the buildings were still in disrepair. I had been doing my best to take care of as many of the vermin that had moved into the area, trying to cut down on potential disease.

That and taking on criminals who were stupid enough to try and start something. E88 members, former ABB members, we had even gone up against the Travelers, collectively, a few times. Coil insisted that we needed to keep up appearances, to convince people that we had no connections.

Fortunately, that was about the extent of the conflicts that we had gotten into. I chalked it up to a combination of recovery efforts and the villains still being spooked by the Nine having been in the city.

As I headed onto the boardwalk, I glanced toward the water, the boat graveyard. I knew Sierra, my other employee, would be meeting with someone that Coil had found to discuss getting it cleaned up. I wasn't feeling too hopeful. We had already set up meetings with a few other people in regard to the graveyard. The costs had all been too high, so far.

I managed to make it to a bus stop just in time to hop onto one, and took a seat at the back of the bus. There weren't many people on the bus. Even on the weekends, most people were still working. Weekends weren't a luxury that many people could take right now.

The bus ride took about half an hour, and I hopped off. I would only have a short walk ahead of me. I could have asked Coil to send a car, avoid the bus and the walk, but...

I wanted to keep these two parts of my life separate.

I rounded the corner and stepped onto my street. My house had been relatively untouched by Leviathan's attack, which was fortunate. Our neighborhood wasn't the best to begin with. Had it been hit hard by Leviathan, the city likely would have just demolished all the houses.

I walked up the stairs and rang the bell. It took a moment for my dad to answer the door. "Taylor, come on in." he said. I nodded and entered.

Since Leviathan's attack, I had been staying at my base most of the time. I had told my dad that I was staying at shelters, trying to do my part with the recovery. He hadn't been happy, but he had accepted it.

Accepted my lie. Pretty easily, too.

I took a seat in the living room, and he hesitated. "Can I get you anything?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I'm all set."

He nodded and sat back into his chair. "How has work been going?" I asked.

"Good, plenty of work to go around." dad said. "How about you? How's working at the shelter?"

"It's going well. Things are starting to come together."

"That's good. Do you think that maybe you'll be coming home soon?"

"I...don't know. There's still a lot of work to do."

"And which shelter are you working at again?"

"It's one on the edge of Skitter's territory." I said, trying to keep my voice neutral as I said my cape name.

"That's good...her's is a pretty safe area, from what I've heard. And at least you're far enough from the other side of the city. That villain group...the Travellers, have been causing trouble over there." He then paused. "Have you...been around Skitter much?"

"Not really. I think she's usually off doing more important things. Overseeing stuff, you know?"

He nodded. "Well, if there's ever a cape fight, I'd hope you would get away from it."

I smiled slightly. "Don't worry, dad. You'll never see Taylor Hebert at a cape fight."

He chuckled and rubbed his eyes.

I hated lying to my dad. It was one of the tougher aspects of being a cape.

We chatted for a bit longer, moving to lighter topics, and then decided to head out to the city to get some breakfast. There weren't too many places that were open, but my dad was privy to the ones that were closest to the house. Supplies became a bit tougher to get to people who weren't central to our territories.

I was trying to work on that.

After our breakfast, we decided to stroll around the city a bit. We ran into a few of his coworkers, and stopped to chat with them.

It was about 1 in the afternoon when my phone went off. A text from Charlotte. I gulped as I saw that. I opened the text.

"Someone here to see u. Amy. Wants to know when you'll be back."

I stared at the text. Amy was looking for me? And the code was present. U meant Taylor, you meant Skitter.

"Tell her I'll be there as soon as I can." I responded. "Take her to my base. She's trustworthy."

My dad had noticed me slowing down, and turned to look at me. I sighed. "I think I need to head out. Something came up...at the shelter. They need me back."

"Oh..." my dad said. "Well, when can we do this again?"

"I...I'm not sure. A couple days? I'll call you and let you know." I said.

"Okay, I'll look forward to that." he said. I could tell he was disappointed, but it couldn't be helped, really.

If Panacea was looking for me, it couldn't be for anything particularly good. For this, I did call Coil for a ride. I had his man pick me up at a store a few blocks from my house. With the ride, it only took about 15 minutes to get back to my base. I entered through the secret entrance, and when I made it inside.

There, I found Charlotte and Amy sitting there, waiting for me.

"Taylor." Charlotte said as she saw me.

"Charlotte, Amy." I said. "What's up?" I asked, looking right at the other hero.

"I...I'm sorry for interrupting your day."

"It's fine. What's going on? Villains?"

"No, nothing like that. I just...I didn't know where else to go. I've been staying at hospitals and shelters, and I just...I can't anymore."

"And...you can't go home?"

"No." Amy said. Her face darkened. "I...I talked to Marquis. My dad."

"Marquis is your dad?" Charlotte asked. Amy just nodded.

"He revealed some things about why they took me in, how it happened. And...it just doesn't make sense. I can't see why Carol...she never..."

I held up a hand to stop her. "Amy, it's fine. You don't have to go into it if you don't want to." I said. "You can stay here, if you want. We have extra beds."

The relief was clear on Amy's face. "Really?"

I nodded. "Of course. You're my friend. If you need a place to stay, I'll help you out."

"Thank you, Taylor."

"It's no problem." I said. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Coil, to get a bed for Amy. I would set it up in my top floor. My Taylor room. I doubted she would want to sleep with a lot of kids.

It took a while to get Amy calmed down enough that she was able to actually form sentences. We were talking about the current State of the city when I got another message. I pulled it out and saw it was from Tattletale.

"Trouble. Meeting at Grue's base. Get there ASAP."

I sighed, standing from my seat. "I need to go."

"What?" Charlotte asked.

"Something's up. I need to meet with the team about it."

"Do you want me to come?" Amy asked.

"No, you just rest here. You look pretty tired." I said. "And we should be able to handle it. Charlotte, can you handle ordering dinner?" I asked, pulling out some cash and tossing it to her.

"Oh, yeah, got it." Charlotte said.

"Thanks." I said, heading to the stairs.

 _So much for a day off._


End file.
